288 299 ––//–– In a seventy-four of the old
order the deck known as the upper
gun-deck was the one covered over by the
spar-deck which last tho' though not without
62 its armament was for the most part exposed
to the weather. In general it was at all
hours free from hammocks; those of the crew
swinging on the lower gun-deck, and
berth-deck, underneath that and next above
the orlop-deck the latter being not only
a dormitory but also the place for the
stowing of the sailors' bags, and as well
and on both sides lined with the ^ large chests
or movable pantries of the many messes
of the men.

290 300 On the starboard side of the ^ Indomitable 's upper
gun-deck, behold Billy Budd under
sentry lying prone in irons in one of the
bays formed by everty every every two guns
by the regular spaceing of the guns ^ pieces
comprising the batteries on either side.
63 All these pieces, now obsolete were of were of
the heavier calibre of that period , . Mounted
on lumbering wooden carriges they were
hampered with cumbersome harness
of breechen and strong side-tackles
for running them out. Guns and carriages,
together with the long rammers and
^ shorter lintstocks lodged in loops overhead—
all these, as customary, were painted
black; and the heavy hempen breechens
tarred to the same tint, wore the same like

291 301 ^ livery of the undertakers. In contrast with the
funereal hue of these surroundings the
prone sailor's exterior apparel, white jumper
and white duck trousers, each more or
less soiled, dimly glimmered in the
obscure light ^ of the bay like a patch of discolored
snow in early April lingering at
64 some upland cave's black mouth.
In effect he is already in his shroud
or the garments that shall serve him
in lieu of one. Over him but not scarce
illuminating him, two battle- lanthorns
lanterns
swing from two massive beams
of the deck above. Fed with the oil
supplied by the war-contracters , ( whose
gains, honest or otherwise, are in every
land an anticipated portion of
the bloody harvest of death , ) with

292 302 flickering splashes of dirty yellow
light they pollute the pale moonshine
all but ineffectually struggling in
obstructed flecks thro the open ports
from which the tompioned cannon
protrude. Other lanthorns lanterns at intervals
serve but to bring out somewhat
the obscurer bays which like small
65 confessionals or side-chapels in a cathedral ^ branch
from the long dim-vistaed broad- aisle
between the two batteries of that ^ covered deck. tier.
Such was the deck where
now lay the Handsome Sailor. Through
the rose-tan of his complexion, in part
a weather-stain , no palor pallor could have
shown. It would have ^ taken days of
sequestration from the winds and the
sun to have brought about the effacement ^ of that. that, young sea- bloom.

294 304 [ Ed. Note: 5 revised lines canceled first in pencil then in blue crayon are non-continuous with previous leaf .]
by most—of all that, crowded within so
short a term, he had just gone through,
abrupt experiences and emotions, some
of them so conflicting ^ poignant, and intense,
the tension relaxed, and more. Without
movement, ^ the young [mariner?] lay prone he ^ lay as in ^ a trance. That
67 adolescent expression previously noted
as his, took taking on now something akin
to the look of a slumbering child [Ed. Note: transposition to "child slumbering" canceled]
seen in the cradle when the warm
hearth-light hearth-glow of the
still chamber at night plays on the
dimples that at whiles mysteriously
form in the cheek, silently coming
and going there. For now and then
in his ^ the gyved one's trance a serene happy light
born of some wandering reminiscence

8 295 305 or dream would diffuse itself over
the his face, and then wane away only
anew to return.
The Chaplain coming to see him
and finding him thus, and percieving no
sign that he was conscious of his prescence,
after not without emotion quietly attentively gazed ^ regarded him for a space, then
68 slipping aside, withdrew for the time,
peradventure feeling that even ^ he the
^ war-ship's minister of Christ peace ^ tho' receiving his stipend from Mars had no consolation
to proffer which could result in a
peace transcending that which he
which not without natural reverence
he beheld. But in the first of the
small hours he came again. And
the prisoner now awake to his
surroundings noticed his approach

9 296 306 and civilly, all but cheerfully, welcomed
him. But it was to little purpose
that in the interview following the
good Chaplain man sought to bring Billy
Budd to some godly understanding
that he must die, and at dawn.
69 True, Billy himself freely named
referred to his death as a thing close
near at hand; but it was something
in the way that children will refer
to death in general, who yet among
their other sports will with much
gravity play a funeral , . with hearse and
mourners.

297 307 Not that like children Billy was
incapable of conciving what death
really is. No, but he was wholly
without irrational fear of it, a fear
more prevalent among in
highly civilized communities than those so-called
70 barberous barbarous ones which in all respects stand
nearer to primitive unadulterate Nature. And, as
elsewhere said, a barbarian Billy
radically was; as much so, for all
the costume, as his countrymen the
British captives, who living trophies,
made to march thro' Rome in the
Roman triumph of Germanicus. Quite as
much so as those later barbarians,
young men probably, ^ and picked specimens among the

298 308 earlier British converts to Christianity, ^ at least nominally such
and taken to Rome (as to day
East Indian converts ^ from lesser isles of the sea may be taken to
London) of whom the Pope of that
time, admiring the strangness of their
personal beauty so unlike the Italian
71 stamp, their clear ruddy complexion
and ^ curled flaxen ^ locks hair , exclaimed, "Angles"
do you call them (meaning English its
the ^ modern derivative) "Angles do you call
them? And is it because they look
so like angels?" Had it been later
in time one would think that the
Pope had in mind Fra Angelico's
seraphs some of whom, seen plucking
apples in some gardens of the Hesperides

299 309 have the faint rose-bud complexion of the
^ more beautiful English girls.
If in vain the good Chaplain
sought to impress the young barbarian
with ideas of death akin to those conveyed
in the skull, dial, and cross-bones on old
72 tombstones; equally futile to all appearance
were his efforts to present to bring home
to him the thought of religion salvation and a
Saviour. Billy listened, but less out of
awe or reverence ^ perhaps then than from a certain
natural politeness; doubtless at bottom
regarding all that in much the same
way that most mariners of his class
take any discourse abstract or out of
the common tone of the work-a-day
world.

300 310 And this sailor-way of taking it clerical
talk discourse is not wholly unlike the way
in which the primer pioneer of Christianity full
of marvellous transcendent miracles is was recieved long
ago on tropic isles by any amiable superior
savage so called—a Tahitian say of
73 Captain Out of natural courtesy Cook's time or shortly after that
time. Out of natural courtesy ^He Out recieved , it, yes, but out of
a sort of complaisance / but did not
appropriate. It was like a gift placed
in the extended palm of an outreached hand upon
hand upon which the fingers do not close.
But the Ch "Indomitable "s
Chaplain was a ^ discreet man possessing the
that sort of good sense of a good heart.
So he insisted not in his vocation
here. At the instance of Captain Vere,

301 311 a lieutenant had apprised him of
pretty much everything as to Billy;
and since he felt that innocence was
even a better thing than religion itself
wherewith to go to Judgement, he
reluctantly withdrew; but in his emotion
74 not without ^ first performing an act strange
enough in an Englishman, and under
the circumstances yet more so in any
regular priest. Stooping over, he kissed
on the fair cheek his fellow-man, a felon
in martial law, one who though on
the confines of death he felt he ^ could never
convert . to a dogma; nor did he fear for all that did he fear for his future
Marvel not that having
been made acquainted with the
young sailor's essential innocense [an irruption of heretic thought
hard to suppress]

302 312 the worthy man lifted not a finger
to avert the doom of such a martyr
to martial discipline. So to do would
not only have been as idle as invoking
the desert, but would also have
been an audacious transgresson of the
the bounds of his function, one as
exactly prescribed to him by military
75 law as that of ^ the boatswain or any other navy naval
76
omitted officer. Bluntly put, a chaplain is an anomalous personage
is the minister of the Prince of Peace
serving in the host of the God of War—
Mars. As such, he is as incongruous
as a that musket of Beecher &c would be on the altar
at Christmas. Why then is he there?
Because he indirectly subserves the purpose
attested by the cannon; because too he lends the
sanction of the religion of the meek to that
which practically is the abrogation of everything
but sheer brute Force
––//––