Explore "Billy Budd" by Herman Melville on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
It was Captain Vere himself who of his own motion communicated the finding of the court to the prisoner; for that purpose going to the compartment where he was in custody and bidding the marine there to withdraw for the time.
Beyond the communication of the sentence what took place at this interview was never known. But in view of the character of the twain briefly closeted in that state-room, each radically sharing in the rarer qualities of our nature--so rare indeed as to be all but incredible to average minds however much cultivated--some conjectures may be ventured.