Chapter 18

by Herman Melville

　　But after the little matter at the mess Billy Budd no more foundhimself in strange trouble at times about his hammock or his clothesbagor what not. While, as to that smile that occasionally sunned him, andthe pleasant passing word, these were if not more frequent, yet ifanything, more pronounced than before.But for all that, there were certain other demonstrations now. WhenClaggart's unobserved glance happened to light on belted Billy rollingalong the upper gun deck in the leisure of the second dog-watch,exchanging passing broadsides of fun with other young promenaders in thecrowd; that glance would follow the cheerful sea-Hyperion with a settledmeditative and melancholy expression, his eyes strangely suffused withincipient feverish tears. Then would Claggart look like the man ofsorrows. Yes, and sometimes the melancholy expression would have in it atouch of soft yearning, as if Claggart could even have loved Billy butfor fate and ban. But this was an evanescence, and quickly repented of,as it were, by an immitigable look, pinching and shrivelling the visageinto the momentary semblance of a wrinkled walnut. But sometimescatching sight in advance of the Foretopman coming in his direction, hewould, upon their nearing, step aside a little to let him pass, dwellingupon Billy for the moment with the glittering dental satire of a Guise.But upon any abrupt unforeseen encounter a red light would flash forthfrom his eye like a spark from an anvil in a dusk smithy. That quickfierce light was a strange one, darted from orbs which in repose were ofa color nearest approaching a deeper violet, the softest of shades.Tho' some of these caprices of the pit could not but be observed bytheir object, yet were they beyond the construing of such a nature. Andthe thews of Billy were hardly compatible with that sort of sensitivespiritual organisation which in some cases instinctively conveys toignorant innocence an admonition of the proximity of the malign. Hethought the Master-at-arms acted in a manner rather queer at times. Thatwas all. But the occasional frank air and pleasant word went for whatthey purported to be, the young sailor never having heard as yet of the"too fair-spoken man."Had the Foretopman been conscious of having done or said anything toprovoke the ill will of the official, it would have been different withhim, and his sight might have been purged if not sharpened. As it was,innocence was his blinder.So was it with him in yet another matter. Two minor officers -- theArmorer and Captain of the Hold, with whom he had never exchanged aword, his position in the ship not bringing him into contact with them;these men now for the first began to cast upon Billy when they chancedto encounter him, that peculiar glance which evidences that the man fromwhom it comes has been some way tampered with and to the prejudice ofhim upon whom the glance lights. Never did it occur to Billy as a thingto be noted or a thing suspicious, tho' he well knew the fact, that theArmorer and Captain of the Hold, with the ship's-yeoman, apothecary, andothers of that grade, were by naval usage, messmates of theMaster-at-arms, men with ears convenient to his confidential tongue.But the general popularity that our Handsome Sailor's manlyforwardness bred upon occasion, and his irresistible good-nature,indicating no mental superiority tending to excite an invidious feeling,this good will on the part of most of his shipmates made him the less toconcern himself about such mute aspects toward him as those wheretoallusion has just been made, aspects he could not fathom as to infertheir whole import.As to the afterguardsman, tho' Billy for reasons already givennecessarily saw little of him, yet when the two did happen to meet,invariably came the fellow's off-hand cheerful recognition, sometimesaccompanied by a passing pleasant word or two. Whatever that equivocalyoung person's original design may really have been, or the design ofwhich he might have been the deputy, certain it was from his manner uponthese occasions, that he had wholly dropped it.It was as if his precocity of crookedness (and every vulgar villainis precocious) had for once deceived him, and the man he had sought toentrap as a simpleton had, through his very simplicity, ignominiouslybaffled him.But shrewd ones may opine that it was hardly possible for Billy torefrain from going up to the afterguardsman and bluntly demanding toknow his purpose in the initial interview, so abruptly closed in thefore-chains. Shrewd ones may also think it but natural in Billy to setabout sounding some of the other impressed men of the ship in order todiscover what basis, if any, there was for the emissary's obscuresuggestions as to plotting disaffection aboard. Yes, the shrewd may sothink. But something more, or rather, something else than mereshrewdness is perhaps needful for the due understanding of such acharacter as Billy Budd's.As to Claggart, the monomania in the man -- if that indeed it were-- as involuntarily disclosed by starts in the manifestations detailed,yet in general covered over by his self-contained and rationaldemeanour; this, like a subterranean fire was eating its way deeper anddeeper in him. Something decisive must come of it.