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a foot too short; but that could be mended with a chair.

But it was a foot too narrow, and the other bench in

the room was about four inches higher than the planed one--

so there was no yoking them.  I then placed the first bench

lengthwise along the only clear space against the wall,

leaving a little interval between, for my back to settle down in.

But I soon found that there came such a draught of cold air

over me from under the sill of the window, that this plan would

never do at all, especially as another current from the rickety

door met the one from the window, and both together formed

a series of small whirlwinds in the immediate vicinity of the spot

where I had thought to spend the night.



The devil fetch that harpooneer, thought I, but stop,

couldn't I steal a march on him--bolt his door inside, and jump

into his bed, not to be wakened by the most violent knockings?

It seemed no bad idea but upon second thoughts I dismissed it.

For who could tell but what the next morning, so soon as I popped

out of the room, the harpooneer might be standing in the entry,

all ready to knock me down!



Still looking around me again, and seeing no possible chance

of spending a sufferable night unless in some other person's bed,

I began to think that after all I might be cherishing

unwarrantable prejudices against this unknown harpooneer.

Thinks I, I'll wait awhile; he must be dropping in before long.

I'll have a good look at him then, and perhaps we may become

jolly good bedfellows after all--there's no telling.



But though the other boarders kept coming in by ones, twos, and threes,

and going to bed, yet no sign of my harpooneer.



"Landlord! said I, "what sort of a chap is he--does he always

keep such late hours?"  It was now hard upon twelve o'clock.



The landlord chuckled again with his lean chuckle, and seemed

to be mightily tickled at something beyond my comprehension.

"No," he answered, "generally he's an early bird--airley to bed

and airley to rise--yea, he's the bird what catches the worm.

But to-night he went out a peddling, you see, and I don't see

what on airth keeps him so late, unless, may be, he can't

sell his head."



"Can't sell his head?--What sort of a bamboozingly story

is this you are telling me?" getting into a towering rage.

"Do you pretend to say, landlord, that this harpooneer is actually

engaged this blessed Saturday night, or rather Sunday morning,

in peddling his head around this town?"



"That's precisely it," said the landlord, "and I told him he couldn't

sell it here, the market's overstocked."



"With what?" shouted I.



"With heads to be sure; ain't there too many heads in the world?"



"I tell you what it is, landlord," said I quite calmly,

"you'd better stop spinning that yarn to me--I'm not green."



"May be not," taking out a stick and whittling a toothpick,

"but I rayther guess you'll be done brown if that ere harpooneer

hears you a slanderin' his head."



"I'll break it for him," said I, now flying into a passion again

at this unaccountable farrago of the landlord's.



"It's broke a'ready," said he.



"Broke," said I--"broke, do you mean?"



"Sartain, and that's the very reason he can't sell it, I guess."



"Landlord," said I, going up to him as cool as Mt.  Hecla in a

snowstorm--"landlord, stop whittling.  You and I must understand

one another, and that too without delay.  I come to your house

and want a bed; you tell me you can only give me half a one;

that the other half belongs to a certain harpooneer.

And about this harpooneer, whom I have not yet seen, you persist

in telling me the most mystifying and exasperating stories tending

to beget in me an uncomfortable feeling towards the man whom you

design for my bedfellow--a sort of connexion, landlord, which is

an intimate and confidential one in the highest degree.

I now demand of you to speak out and tell me who and what this

harpooneer is, and whether I shall be in all respects safe

to spend the night with him.  And in the first place, you will

be so good as to unsay that story about selling his head,

which if true I take to be good evidence that this harpooneer

is stark mad, and I've no idea of sleeping with a madman;

and you, sir, you I mean, landlord, you, sir, by trying to induce

me to do so knowingly would thereby render yourself liable

to a criminal prosecution."



"Wall," said the landlord, fetching a long breath, "that's a

purty long sarmon for a chap that rips a little now and then.

But be easy, be easy, this here harpooneer I have been tellin'

you of has just arrived from the south seas, where he bought up

a lot of 'balmed New Zealand heads (great curios, you know),

and he's sold all on 'em but one, and that one he's trying to sell

to-night, cause to-morrow's Sunday, and it would not do to be sellin'

human heads about the streets when folks is goin' to churches.

He wanted to last Sunday, but I stopped him just as he was goin'

out of the door with four heads strung on a string, for all

the airth like a string of inions."



This account cleared up the otherwise unaccountable mystery,

and showed that the landlord, after all, had had no idea of fooling me--

but at the same time what could I think of a harpooneer who stayed

out of a Saturday night clean into the holy Sabbath, engaged in such

a cannibal business as selling the heads of dead idolators?



"Depend upon it, landlord, that harpooneer is a dangerous man."



"He pays reg'lar," was the rejoinder.  "But come, it's getting

dreadful late, you had better be turning flukes--it's a nice bed:

Sal and me slept in that ere bed the night we were spliced.

There's plenty of room for two to kick about in that bed;

it's an almighty big bed that.  Why, afore we give it up,

Sal used to put our Sam and little Johnny in the foot of it.

But I got a dreaming and sprawling about one night, and somehow,

Sam got pitched on the floor, and came near breaking his arm.

After that, Sal said it wouldn't do.  Come along here,

I'll give ye a glim in a jiffy;" and so saying he lighted

a candle and held it towards me, offering to lead the way.

But I stood irresolute; when looking at a clock in the corner,

he exclaimed "I vum it's Sunday--you won't see that harpooneer to-night;

he's come to anchor somewhere--come along then; do come;

won't ye come?"



I considered the matter a moment, and then up stairs we went,

and I was ushered into a small room, cold as a clam, and furnished,

sure enough, with a prodigious bed, almost big enough indeed

t/files/moby11.txt  view on Meta::CPAN

"Beloved shipmates, clinch the last verse of the first chapter

of Jonah--'And God had prepared a great fish to swallow up Jonah.'"



"Shipmates, this book, containing only four chapters--

four yarns--is one of the smallest strands in the mighty cable

of the Scriptures.  Yet what depths of the soul does Jonah's deep

sealine sound! what a pregnant lesson to us is this prophet!

What a noble thing is that canticle in the fish's belly!

How billow-like and boisterously grand!  We feel the floods surging

over us, we sound with him to the kelpy bottom of the waters;

sea-weed and all the slime of the sea is about us!  But what is

this lesson that the book of Jonah teaches?  Shipmates, it is

a two-stranded lesson; a lesson to us all as sinful men,

and a lesson to me as a pilot of the living God.  As sinful men,

it is a lesson to us all, because it is a story of the sin,

hard-heartedness, suddenly awakened fears, the swift punishment,

repentance, prayers, and finally the deliverance and joy

of Jonah.  As with all sinners among men, the sin of this son

of Amittai was in his wilful disobedience of the command of God--

never mind now what that command was, or how conveyed--

which he found a hard command.  But all the things that God

would have us do are hard for us to do--remember that--

and hence, he oftener commands us than endeavors to persuade.

And if we obey God, we must disobey ourselves; and it is in this

disobeying ourselves, wherein the hardness of obeying God consists.



"With this sin of disobedience in him, Jonah still further

flouts at God, by seeking to flee from Him.  He thinks

that a ship made by men, will carry him into countries

where God does not reign but only the Captains of this earth.

He skulks about the wharves of Joppa, and seeks a ship that's

bound for Tarshish.  There lurks, perhaps, a hitherto unheeded

meaning here.  By all accounts Tarshish could have been no other

city than the modern Cadiz.  That's the opinion of learned men.

And where is Cadiz, shipmates?  Cadiz is in Spain; as far by water,

from Joppa, as Jonah could possibly have sailed in those

ancient days, when the Atlantic was an almost unknown sea.

Because Joppa, the modern Jaffa, shipmates, is on the most

easterly coast of the Mediterranean, the Syrian; and Tarshish

or Cadiz more than two thousand miles to the westward from that,

just outside the Straits of Gibraltar.  See ye not then, shipmates,

that Jonah sought to flee worldwide from God?  Miserable man!

Oh! most contemptible and worthy of all scorn; with slouched

hat and guilty eye, skulking from his God; prowling among

the shipping like a vile burglar hastening to cross the seas.

So disordered, self-condemning is his look, that had there

been policemen in those days, Jonah, on the mere suspicion

of something wrong, had been arrested ere he touched a deck.

How plainly he's a fugitive! no baggage, not a hat-box, valise,

or carpet-bag,--no friends accompany him to the wharf with

their adieux.  At last, after much dodging search, he finds

the Tarshish ship receiving the last items of her cargo;

and as he steps on board to see its Captain in the cabin,

all the sailors for the moment desist from hoisting in the goods,

to mark the stranger's evil eye.  Jonah sees this; but in vain

he tries to look all ease and confidence; in vain essays his

wretched smile.  Strong intuitions of the man assure the mariners

he can be no innocent.  In their gamesome but still serious way,

one whispers to the other--"Jack, he's robbed a widow;"

or, "Joe, do you mark him; he's a bigamist;" or, "Harry lad,

I guess he's the adulterer that broke jail in old Gomorrah,

or belike, one of the missing murderers from Sodom."  Another runs

to read the bill that's stuck against the spile upon the wharf

to which the ship is moored, offering five hundred gold coins

for the apprehension of a parricide, and containing a description

of his person.  He reads, and looks from Jonah to the bill;

while all his sympathetic shipmates now crowd round Jonah,

prepared to lay their hands upon him.  Frighted Jonah trembles.

and summoning all his boldness to his face, only looks so much

the more a coward.  He will not confess himself suspected;

but that itself is strong suspicion.  So he makes the best of it;

and when the sailors find him not to be the man that is advertised,

they let him pass, and he descends into the cabin.



"'Who's there?' cries the Captain at his busy desk, hurriedly making

out his papers for the Customs--'Who's there?'  Oh! how that harmless

question mangles Jonah!  For the instant he almost turns to flee again.

But he rallies.  'I seek a passage in this ship to Tarshish;

how soon sail ye, sir?'  Thus far the busy Captain had not looked up

to Jonah, though the man now stands before him; but no sooner does

he hear that hollow voice, than he darts a scrutinizing glance.

'We sail with the next coming tide,' at last he slowly answered,

still intently eyeing him.  'No sooner, sir?'--'Soon enough for any

honest man that goes a passenger.'  Ha!  Jonah, that's another stab.

But he swiftly calls away the Captain from that scent.

'I'll sail with ye,'--he says,--'the passage money how much is that?--

I'll pay now.'  For it is particularly written, shipmates, as if it

were a thing not to be overlooked in this history, 'that he paid

the fare thereof' ere the craft did sail.  And taken with the context,

this is full of meaning.



"Now Jonah's Captain, shipmates, was one whose discernment detects

crime in any, but whose cupidity exposes it only in the penniless.

In this world, shipmates, sin that pays its way can travel

freely and without a passport; whereas Virtue, if a pauper,

is stopped at all frontiers.  So Jonah's Captain prepares

to test the length of Jonah's purse, ere he judge him openly.

He charges him thrice the usual sum; and it's assented to.

Then the Captain knows that Jonah is a fugitive; but at the same

time resolves to help a flight that paves its rear with gold.

Yet when Jonah fairly takes out his purse, prudent suspicions still

molest the Captain.  He rings every coin to find a counterfeit.

Not a forger, any way, he mutters; and Jonah is put down for his passage.

'Point out my state-room, Sir,' says Jonah now, 'I'm travel-weary;

I need sleep."  "Thou look'st like it,' says the Captain,

'there's thy room.'  Jonah enters, and would lock the door,

but the lock contains no key.  Hearing him foolishly fumbling there,

the Captain laughs lowly to himself, and mutters something about

the doors of convicts' cells being never allowed to be locked within.

All dressed and dusty as he is, Jonah throws himself into his berth,

and finds the little state-room ceiling almost resting on his forehead.

The air is close, and Jonah gasps.  Then, in that contracted hole,

sunk, too, beneath the ship's water-line, Jonah feels the heralding

presentiment of that stifling hour, when the whale shall hold him

in the smallest of his bowels' wards.



"Screwed at its axis against the side, a swinging lamp slightly

oscillates in Jonah's room; and the ship, heeling over towards the wharf

with the weight of the last bales received, the lamp, flame and all,

though in slight motion, still maintains a permanent obliquity with

reference to the room; though, in truth, infallibly straight itself,

t/files/moby11.txt  view on Meta::CPAN

the wooden shaft of Queequeg's harpoon, which the landlady the evening

previous had taken from him, before our mounting to the chamber.

That's strange, thought I; but at any rate, since the harpoon

stands yonder, and he seldom or never goes abroad without it,

therefore he must be inside here, and no possible mistake.



"Queequeg!--Queequeg!"--all still.  Something must

have happened.  Apoplexy!  I tried to burst open the door;

but it stubbornly resisted.  Running down stairs, I quickly

stated my suspicions to the first person I met--the chamber-maid.

"La! la!" she cried, "I thought something must be the matter.

I went to make the bed after breakfast, and the door was locked;

and not a mouse to be heard; and it's been just so silent ever since.

But I thought, may be, you had both gone off and locked your

baggage in for safe keeping.  La!  La, ma'am!--Mistress! murder!

Mrs. Hussey! apoplexy!"--and with these cries she ran towards

the kitchen, I following.



Mrs. Hussey soon appeared, with a mustard-pot in one hand

and a vinegar-cruet in the other, having just broken away

from the occupation of attending to the castors, and scolding

her little black boy meantime.



"Wood-house!" cried I, "which way to it?  Run for God's sake, and fetch

something to pry open the door--the axe!--the axe! he's had a stroke;

depend upon it!"--and so saying I was unmethodically rushing up stairs

again empty-handed, when Mrs. Hussey interposed the mustard-pot and

vinegar-cruet, and the entire castor of her countenance.



"What's the matter with you, young man?"



"Get the axe!  For God's sake, run for the doctor, some one,

while I pry it open!"



"Look here," said the landlady, quickly putting down

the vinegar-cruet, so as to have one hand free; "look here;

are you talking about prying open any of my doors?"--

and with that she seized my arm.  "What's the matter with you?

What's the matter with you, shipmate?"



In as calm, but rapid a manner as possible, I gave her to understand

the whole case.  Unconsciously clapping the vinegar-cruet

to one side of her nose, she ruminated for an instant;

then exclaimed--"No! I haven't seen it since I put it there."

Running to a little closet under the landing of the stairs, she glanced

in, and returning, told me that Queequeg's harpoon was missing.

"He's killed himself," she cried.  "It's unfort'nate Stiggs done

over again there goes another counterpane--God pity his poor mother!--

it will be the ruin of my house.  Has the poor lad a sister?

Where's that girl?--there, Betty, go to Snarles the Painter,

and tell him to paint me a sign, with--"no suicides permitted here,

and no smoking in the parlor;"--might as well kill both

birds at once.  Kill?  The Lord be merciful to his ghost!

What's that noise there?  You, young man, avast there!"



And running up after me, she caught me as I was again trying to force

open the door.



"I won't allow it; I won't have my premises spoiled.

Go for the locksmith, there's one about a mile from here.  But avast!"

putting her hand in her side pocket, "here's a key that'll fit, I guess;

let's see."  And with that, she turned it in the lock; but alas!

Queequeg's supplemental bolt remained unwithdrawn within.



"Have to burst it open," said I, and was running down the entry

a little, for a good start, when the landlady caught at me,

again vowing I should not break down her premises; but I tore

from her, and with a sudden bodily rush dashed myself full

against the mark.



With a prodigious noise the door flew open, and the knob

slamming against the wall, sent the plaster to the ceiling;

and there, good heavens! there sat Queequeg, altogether cool

and self-collected; right in the middle of the room;

squatting on his hams, and holding Yojo on top of his head.

He looked neither one way nor the other way but sat like a carved

image with scarce a sign of active life.



"Queequeg," said I, going up to him, "Queequeg, what's

the matter with you?"



"He hain't been a sittin' so all day, has he?" said the landlady.



But all we said, not a word could we drag out of him;

I almost felt like pushing him over, so as to change his position,

for it was almost intolerable, it seemed so painfully and

unnaturally constrained; especially, as in all probability

he had been sitting so for upwards of eight or ten hours,

going too without his regular meals.



"Mrs. Hussey," said I, "he's alive at all events; so leave us,

if you please, and I will see to this strange affair myself."



Closing the door upon the landlady, I endeavored to prevail

upon Queequeg to take a chair; but in vain.  There he sat;

and all he could do--for all my polite arts and blandishments--

he would not move a peg, nor say a single word, nor even look

at me, nor notice my presence in any the slightest way.



I wonder, thought I, if this can possibly be a part of his Ramadan;

do they fast on their hams that way in his native island.

It must be so; yes, it's a part of his creed, I suppose;

well, then, let him rest; he'll get up sooner or later, no doubt.

It can't last for ever, thank God, and his Ramadan only comes

once a year; and I don't believe it's very punctual then.



I went down to supper.  After sitting a long time listening to the long

stories of some sailors who had just come from a plum-pudding voyage,

as they called it (that is, a short whaling-voyage in a schooner or brig,

confined to the north of the line, in the Atlantic Ocean only);

after listening to these plum-puddingers till nearly eleven o'clock, I

went up stairs to go to bed, feeling quite sure by this time Queequeg

must certainly have brought his Ramadan to a termination.  But no;

there he was just where I had left him; he had not stirred an inch.

I began to grow vexed with him; it seemed so downright senseless

and insane to be sitting there all day and half the night on his hams

in a cold room, holding a piece of wood on his head.



"For heaven's sake, Queequeg, get up and shake yourself; get up and have

some supper.  You'll starve; you'll kill yourself, Queequeg."  But not

a word did he reply.

t/files/moby11.txt  view on Meta::CPAN

that it was the custom, when a great battle had been gained there,

to barbecue all the slain in the yard or garden of the victor;

and then, one by one, they were placed in great wooden trenchers,

and garnished round like a pilau, with breadfruit and cocoanuts;

and with some parsley in their mouths, were sent round with

the victor's compliments to all his friends, just as though

these presents were so many Christmas turkeys.



After all, I do not think that my remarks about religion made

much impression upon Queequeg.  Because, in the first place,

he somehow seemed dull of hearing on that important subject,

unless considered from his own point of view; and, in the

second place, he did not more than one third understand me,

couch my ideas simply as I would; and, finally, he no doubt thought

he knew a good deal more about the true religion than I did.

He looked at me with a sort of condescending concern and compassion,

as though he thought it a great pity that such a sensible young

man should be so hopelessly lost to evangelical pagan piety.



At last we rose and dressed; and Queequeg, taking a prodigiously hearty

breakfast of chowders of all sorts, so that the landlady should not make

much profit by reason of his Ramadan, we sallied out to board the Pequod,

sauntering along, and picking our teeth with halibut bones.







CHAPTER 18



His Mark





As we were walking down the end of the wharf towards the ship,

Queequeg carrying his harpoon, Captain Peleg in his gruff voice

loudly hailed us from his wigwam, saying he had not suspected

my friend was a cannibal, and furthermore announcing that he let

no cannibals on board that craft, unless they previously

produced their papers.



"What do you mean by that, Captain Peleg?" said I, now jumping

on the bulwarks, and leaving my comrade standing on the wharf.



"I mean," he replied, "he must show his papers."



"Yes," said Captain Bildad in his hollow voice, sticking his head from

behind Peleg's, out of the wigwam.  "He must show that he's converted.

Son of darkness," he added, turning to Queequeg, "art thou at present

in communion with any Christian church?"



"Why," said I, "he's a member of the first Congregational Church."

Here be it said, that many tattooed savages sailing in Nantucket

ships at last come to be converted into the churches.



"First Congregational Church," cried Bildad, "what! that worships

in Deacon Deuteronomy Coleman's meeting-house?" and so saying,

taking out his spectacles, he rubbed them with his great yellow

bandana handkerchief, and putting them on very carefully,

came out of the wigwam, and leaning stiffly over the bulwarks,

took a good long look at Queequeg.



"How long hath he been a member?" he then said, turning to me;

"not very long, I rather guess, young man."



"No," said Peleg, "and he hasn't been baptized right either,

or it would have washed some of that devil's blue off his face."



"Do tell, now," cried Bildad, "is this Philistine a regular member

of Deacon Deuteronomy's meeting?  I never saw him going there,

and I pass it every Lord's day."



"I don't know anything about Deacon Deuteronomy or his meeting,"

said I; "all I know is, that Queequeg here is a born member of the

First Congregational Church.  He is a deacon himself, Queequeg is."



"Young man," said Bildad sternly, "thou art skylarking with me--

explain thyself, thou young Hittite.  What church dost thee

mean? answer me."



Finding myself thus hard pushed, I replied, "I mean, sir, the same

ancient Catholic Church to which you and I, and Captain Peleg there,

and Queequeg here, and all of us, and every mother's son and soul

of us belong; the great and everlasting First Congregation of this

whole worshipping world; we all belong to that; only some of us

cherish some queer crotchets no ways touching the grand belief;

in that we all join hands."



"Splice, thou mean'st splice hands," cried Peleg, drawing nearer.

"Young man, you'd better ship for a missionary,

instead of a fore-mast hand; I never heard a better sermon.

Deacon Deuteronomy--why Father Mapple himself couldn't beat it,

and he's reckoned something.  Come aboard, come aboard:

never mind about the papers.  I say, tell Quohog there--

what's that you call him? tell Quohog to step along.

By the great anchor, what a harpoon he's got there! looks

like good stuff that; and he handles it about right.

I say, Quohog, or whatever your name is, did you ever stand

in the head of a whale-boat? did you ever strike a fish?"



Without saying a word, Queequeg, in his wild sort of way, jumped upon

the bulwarks, from thence into the bows of one of the whale-boats hanging

to the side; and then bracing his left knee, and poising his harpoon,

cried out in some such way as this:--



"Cap'ain, you see him small drop tar on water dere?  You see him? well,

spose him one whale eye, well, den!" and taking sharp aim at it,

he darted the iron right over old Bildad's broad brim, clean across

the ship's decks, and struck the glistening tar spot out of sight.



"Now," said Queequeg, quietly, hauling in the line, "spos-ee him

whale-e eye; why, dad whale dead."



"Quick, Bildad," said Peleg, his partner, who, aghast at the close

vicinity of the flying harpoon, had retreated towards the cabin gangway.

"Quick, I say, you Bildad, and get the ship's papers.

We must have Hedgehog there, I mean Quohog, in one of our boats.

Look ye, Quohog, we'll give ye the ninetieth lay, and that's more

than ever was given a harpooneer yet out of Nantucket."



So down we went into the cabin, and to my great joy Queequeg was soon

enrolled among the same ship's company to which I myself belonged.



When all preliminaries were over and Peleg had got everything ready

for signing, he turned to me and said, "I guess, Quohog there don't

know how to write, does he?  I say, Quohog, blast ye! dost thou sign

thy name or make thy mark?



But at this question, Queequeg, who had twice or thrice before taken

part in similar ceremonies, looked no ways abashed; but taking

the offered pen, copied upon the paper, in the proper place,

an exact counterpart of a queer round figure which was tattooed

upon his arm; so that through Captain Peleg's obstinate mistake

touching his appellative, it stood something like this:--

                             Quohog.

                           his X mark.

Meanwhile Captain Bildad sat earnestly and steadfastly eyeing Queequeg,

and at last rising solemnly and fumbling in the huge pockets

of his broadskirted drab coat took out a bundle of tracts,

and selecting one entitled "The Latter Day Coming; or No Time

to Lose," placed it in Queequeg's hands, and then grasping them

and the book with both his, looked earnestly into his eyes, and said,

"Son of darkness, I must do my duty by thee; I am part owner

of this ship, and feel concerned for the souls of all its crew;

if thou still clingest to thy Pagan ways, which I sadly fear,

I beseech thee, remain not for aye a Belial bondsman.

Spurn the idol Bell, and the hideous dragon; turn from the wrath

to come; mind thine eye, I say; oh! goodness gracious! steer

clear of the fiery pit!"



Something of the salt sea yet lingered in old Bildad's language,

heterogeneously mixed with Scriptural and domestic phrases.



"Avast there, avast there, Bildad, avast now spoiling our harpooneer,

cried Peleg.  "Pious harpooneers never make good voyagers--

it takes the shark out of 'em; no harpooneer is worth a straw

who aint pretty sharkish.  There was young Nat Swaine,

once the bravest boat-header out of all Nantucket and

the Vineyard; he joined the meeting, and never came to good.

He got so frightened about his plaguy soul, that he shrinked

and sheered away from whales, for fear of after-claps, in case

he got stove and went to Davy Jones."



"Peleg!  Peleg!" said Bildad, lifting his eyes and hands,

"thou thyself, as I myself, hast seen many a perilous time;

thou knowest, Peleg, what it is to have the fear of death;

how, then, can'st thou prate in this ungodly guise.

Thou beliest thine own heart, Peleg.  Tell me, when this same Pequod

here had her three masts overboard in that typhoon on Japan,

that same voyage when thou went mate with Captain Ahab,

did'st thou not think of Death and the Judgment then?"



"Hear him, hear him now," cried Peleg, marching across the cabin,

and thrusting his hands far down into his pockets,--"hear him, all of ye.

Think of that!  When every moment we thought the ship would sink!

Death and the Judgment then?  What?  With all three masts making such

an everlasting thundering against the side; and every sea breaking

over us, fore and aft.  Think of Death and the Judgment then?

No! no time to think about Death then.  Life was what Captain Ahab

and I was thinking of; and how to save all hands how to rig jury-masts

how to get into the nearest port; that was what I was thinking of."



Bildad said no more, but buttoning up his coat, stalked on deck,

where we followed him.  There he stood, very quietly overlooking

some sailmakers who were mending a top-sail in the waist.

t/files/moby11.txt  view on Meta::CPAN

bayonet of his pointed finger darted full at the object.



"Yes," said I, "we have just signed the articles."



"Anything down there about your souls?"



"About what?"



"Oh, perhaps you hav'n't got any," he said quickly.

"No matter though, I know many chaps that hav'n't got any,--

good luck to 'em; and they are all the better off for it.

A soul's a sort of a fifth wheel to a wagon."



"What are you jabbering about, shipmate?" said I.



"He's got enough, though, to make up for all deficiencies

of that sort in other chaps," abruptly said the stranger,

placing a nervous emphasis upon the word he.



"Queequeg," said I, "let's go; this fellow has broken loose

from somewhere; he's talking about something and somebody

we don't know."



"Stop!" cried the stranger.  "Ye said true--ye hav'n't seen

Old Thunder yet, have ye?"



"Who's Old Thunder?" said I, again riveted with the insane earnestness

of his manner.



"Captain Ahab."



"What! the captain of our ship, the Pequod?"



"Aye, among some of us old sailor chaps, he goes by that name.

Ye hav'n't seen him yet, have ye?"



"No, we hav'n't. He's sick they say, but is getting better,

and will be all right again before long."



"All right again before long!" laughed the stranger, with a solemnly

derisive sort of laugh.  "Look ye; when Captain Ahab is all right,

then this left arm of mine will be all right; not before."



"What do you know about him?"



"What did they tell you about him?  Say that!"



"They didn't tell much of anything about him; only I've heard that he's

a good whale-hunter, and a good captain to his crew."



"That's true, that's true--yes, both true enough.

But you must jump when he gives an order.  Step and growl;

growl and go--that's the word with Captain Ahab.  But nothing

about that thing that happened to him off Cape Horn, long ago,

when he lay like dead for three days and nights; nothing about

that deadly skrimmage with the Spaniard afore the altar in Santa?--

heard nothing about that, eh?  Nothing about the silver calabash

he spat into?  And nothing about his losing his leg last voyage,

according to the prophecy.  Didn't ye hear a word about them

matters and something more, eh?  No, I don't think ye did;

how could ye?  Who knows it?  Not all Nantucket, I guess.

But hows'ever, mayhap, ye've heard tell about the leg,

and how he lost it; aye, ye have heard of that, I dare say.

Oh, yes, that every one knows a'most--I mean they know he's

only one leg; and that a parmacetti took the other off."



"My friend," said I, "what all this gibberish of yours

is about, I don't know, and I don't much care; for it seems

to me that you must be a little damaged in the head.

But if you are speaking of Captain Ahab, of that ship there,

the Pequod, then let me tell you, that I know all about the loss

of his leg."



"All about it, eh--sure you do? all?



"Pretty sure."



With finger pointed and eye levelled at the Pequod, the beggar-like

stranger stood a moment, as if in a troubled reverie; then starting

a little, turned and said:--"Ye've shipped, have ye?  Names down on

the papers?  Well, well, what's signed, is signed; and what's to be,

will be; and then again, perhaps it won't be, after all.  Any how,

it's all fixed and arranged a'ready; and some sailors or other must go

with him, I suppose; as well these as any other men, God pity 'em!

Morning to ye, shipmates, morning; the ineffable heavens bless ye;

I'm sorry I stopped ye."



"Look here, friend," said I, "if you have anything important to tell us,

out with it; but if you are only trying to bamboozle us, you are mistaken

in your game; that's all I have to say."



"And it's said very well, and I like to hear a chap talk up

that way; you are just the man for him--the likes of ye.

Morning to ye, shipmates, morning!  Oh! when ye get there,

tell 'em I've concluded not to make one of 'em."



"Ah, my dear fellow, you can't fool us that way--you can't fool us.

It is the easiest thing in the world for a man to look as if he had

a great secret in him."



"Morning to ye, shipmates, morning."



"Morning it is," said I. "Come along, Queequeg, let's leave this

crazy man.  But stop, tell me your name, will you?"



"Elijah."



Elijah! thought I, and we walked away, both commenting,

after each other's fashion, upon this ragged old sailor;

and agreed that he was nothing but a humbug, trying to be a bugbear.

But we had not gone perhaps above a hundred yards, when chancing

to turn a corner, and looking back as I did so, who should be seen

but Elijah following us, though at a distance.  Somehow, the sight

of him struck me so, that I said nothing to Queequeg of his

being behind, but passed on with my comrade, anxious to see

whether the stranger would turn the same corner that we did.

He did; and then it seemed to me that he was dogging us,

but with what intent I could not for the life of me imagine.

This circumstance, coupled with his ambiguous, half-hinting,

half-revealing, shrouded sort of talk, now begat in me all

kinds of vague wonderments and half-apprehensions, and all

t/files/moby11.txt  view on Meta::CPAN

and indefatigable spirit, but withal very kindhearted, who seemed

resolved that, if she could help it, nothing should be found

wanting in the Pequod, after once fairly getting to sea.

At one time she would come on board with a jar of pickles

for the steward's pantry; another time with a bunch of

quills for the chief mate's desk, where he kept his log;

a third time with a roll of flannel for the small of some one's

rheumatic back.  Never did any woman better deserve her name,

which was Charity--Aunt Charity, as everybody called her.

And like a sister of charity did this charitable Aunt Charity

bustle about hither and thither, ready to turn her hand and heart

to anything that promised to yield safety, comfort, and consolation

to all on board a ship in which her beloved brother Bildad

was concerned, and in which she herself owned a score or two

of well-saved dollars.



But it was startling to see this excellent hearted Quakeress

coming on board, as she did the last day, with a long oil-ladle

in one hand, and a still longer whaling lance in the other.

Nor was Bildad himself nor Captain Peleg at all backward.

As for Bildad, he carried about with him a long list

of the articles needed, and at every fresh arrival,

down went his mark opposite that article upon the paper.

Every once in a while Peleg came hobbling out of his whalebone den,

roaring at the men down the hatchways, roaring up to the

riggers at the mast-head, and then concluded by roaring back

into his wigwam.



During these days of preparation, Queequeg and I often visited

the craft, and as often I asked about Captain Ahab, and how he was,

and when he was going to come on board his ship.  To these questions

they would answer, that he was getting better and better, and was

expected aboard every day; meantime, the two Captains, Peleg and Bildad,

could attend to everything necessary to fit the vessel for the voyage.

If I had been downright honest with myself, I would have seen

very plainly in my heart that I did but half fancy being committed

this way to so long a voyage, without once laying my eyes on the man

who was to be the absolute dictator of it, so soon as the ship

sailed out upon the open sea.  But when a man suspects any wrong,

it sometimes happens that if he be already involved in the matter,

he insensibly strives to cover up his suspicions even from himself.

And much this way it was with me.  I said nothing, and tried

to think nothing.



At last it was given out that some time next day the ship

would certainly sail.  So next morning, Queequeg and I took

a very early start.







CHAPTER 21



Going Aboard





It was nearly six o'clock, but only grey imperfect misty dawn,

when we drew nigh the wharf.



"There are some sailors running ahead there, if I see right,"

said I to Queequeg, "it can't be shadows; she's off by sunrise,

I guess; come on!"



"Avast!" cried a voice, whose owner at the same time coming

close behind us, laid a hand upon both our shoulders, and then

insinuating himself between us, stood stooping forward a little,

in the uncertain twilight, strangely peering from Queequeg to me.

It was Elijah.



"Going aboard?"



"Hands off, will you," said I.



"Lookee here," said Queequeg, shaking himself, "go 'way!"



"Aint going aboard, then?"



"Yes, we are," said I, "but what business is that of yours?

Do you know, Mr. Elijah, that I consider you a little impertinent?"



"No, no, no; I wasn't aware of that," said Elijah, slowly and wonderingly

looking from me to Queequeg, with the most unaccountable glances.



"Elijah," said I, "you will oblige my friend and me by withdrawing.

We are going to the Indian and Pacific Oceans, and would prefer

not to be detained."



"Ye be, be ye?  Coming back afore breakfast?"



"He's cracked, Queequeg," said I, "come on."



"Holloa!" cried stationary Elijah, hailing us when we had removed

a few paces.



"Never mind him," said I, "Queequeg, come on."



But he stole up to us again, and suddenly clapping his hand

on my shoulder, said--"Did ye see anything looking like men

going towards that ship a while ago?"



Struck by this plain matter-of-fact question, I answered, saying, "Yes, I

thought I did see four or five men; but it was too dim to be sure."



"Very dim, very dim," said Elijah.  "Morning to ye."



Once more we quitted him; but once more he came softly after us;

and touching my shoulder again, said, "See if you can find

'em now, will ye?



"Find who?"



"Morning to ye! morning to ye!" he rejoined, again moving off.

"Oh!  I was going to warn ye against--but never mind, never mind--

it's all one, all in the family too;--sharp frost this morning,

ain't it?  Good-bye to ye.  Shan't see ye again very soon, I guess;

unless it's before the Grand Jury."  And with these cracked words

he finally departed, leaving me, for the moment, in no small

wonderment at his frantic impudence.



At last, stepping on board the Pequod, we found everything in

profound quiet, not a soul moving.  The cabin entrance was locked within;

the hatches were all on, and lumbered with coils of rigging.

Going forward to the forecastle, we found the slide of the scuttle open.

Seeing a light, we went down, and found only an old rigger there,

wrapped in a tattered pea-jacket. He was thrown at whole length upon

two chests, his face downwards and inclosed in his folded arms.

The profoundest slumber slept upon him.



"Those sailors we saw, Queequeg, where can they have gone to?"

said I, looking dubiously at the sleeper.  But it seemed that,

when on the wharf, Queequeg had not at all noticed what I now alluded to;

hence I would have thought myself to have been optically deceived in

that matter, were it not for Elijah's otherwise inexplicable question.

But I beat the thing down; and again marking the sleeper,

jocularly hinted to Queequeg that perhaps we had best sit up

with the body; telling him to establish himself accordingly.

He put his hand upon the sleeper's rear, as though feeling if it

was soft enough; and then, without more ado, sat quietly down there.



"Gracious!  Queequeg, don't sit there," said I.



"Oh; perry dood seat," said Queequeg, "my country way;

won't hurt him face."



"Face!" said I, "call that his face? very benevolent countenance then;

but how hard he breathes, he's heaving himself; get off,

Queequeg, you are heavy, it's grinding the face of the poor.

Get off, Queequeg!  Look, he'll twitch you off soon.

I wonder he don't wake."



Queequeg removed himself to just beyond the head of the sleeper,

and lighted his tomahawk pipe.  I sat at the feet.

We kept the pipe passing over the sleeper, from one to the other.

Meanwhile, upon questioning him in his broken fashion, Queequeg gave

me to understand that, in his land, owing to the absence of settees

and sofas of all sorts, the king, chiefs, and great people generally,

were in the custom of fattening some of the lower orders for ottomans;

and to furnish a house comfortably in that respect, you had only

to buy up eight or ten lazy fellows, and lay them round in the piers

and alcoves.  Besides, it was very convenient on an excursion;

much better than those garden-chairs which are convertible into

walking sticks; upon occasion, a chief calling his attendant,

and desiring him to make a settee of himself under a spreading tree,

perhaps in some damp marshy place.



While narrating these things, every time Queequeg received the tomahawk

from me, he flourished the hatchet-side of it over the sleeper's head.



"What's that for, Queequeg?"



"Perry easy, kill-e; oh! perry easy!



He was going on with some wild reminiscences about his tomahawk-pipe

which, it seemed, had in its two uses both brained his foes and soothed

his soul, when we were directly attracted to the sleeping rigger.

t/files/moby11.txt  view on Meta::CPAN

were set, and the band on deck sentinelled the slumbers of the band below;

and when if a rope was to be hauled upon the forecastle, the sailors

flung it not rudely down, as by day, but with some cautiousness dropt it

to its place for fear of disturbing their slumbering shipmates; when this

sort of steady quietude would begin to prevail, habitually, the silent

steersman would watch the cabin-scuttle; and ere long the old man

would emerge, gripping at the iron banister, to help his crippled way.

Some considering touch of humanity was in him; for at times like these,

he usually abstained from patrolling the quarter-deck; because to his

wearied mates, seeking repose within six inches of his ivory heel,

such would have been the reverberating crack and din of that bony step,

that their dreams would have been of the crunching teeth of sharks.

But once, the mood was on him too deep for common regardings;

and as with heavy, lumber-like pace he was measuring the ship from

taffrail to mainmast, Stubb, the old second mate, came up from below,

and with a certain unassured, deprecating humorousness, hinted that if

Captain Ahab was pleased to walk the planks, then, no one could say nay;

but there might be some way of muffling the noise; hinting something

indistinctly and hesitatingly about a globe of tow, and the insertion

into it, of the ivory heel.  Ah!  Stubb, thou didst not know Ahab then.



"Am I a cannon-ball, Stubb," said Ahab, "that thou wouldst

wad me that fashion?  But go thy ways; I had forgot.

Below to thy nightly grave; where such as ye sleep between shrouds,

to use ye to the filling one at last.--Down, dog, and kennel!"



Starting at the unforeseen concluding exclamation of the so suddenly

scornful old man, Stubb was speechless a moment; then said excitedly,

"I am not used to be spoken to that way, sir; I do but less than half

like it, sir."



"Avast! gritted Ahab between his set teeth, and violently moving away,

as if to avoid some passionate temptation.



"No, sir; not yet," said Stubb, emboldened, "I will not tamely

be called a dog, sir."



"Then be called ten times a donkey, and a mule, and an ass,

and begone, or I'll clear the world of thee!"



As he said this, Ahab advanced upon him with such overbearing

terrors in his aspect, that Stubb involuntarily retreated.



"I was never served so before without giving a hard blow for it,"

muttered Stubb, as he found himself descending the cabin-scuttle.

"It's very queer.  Stop, Stubb; somehow, now, I don't well

know whether to go back and strike him, or--what's that?--

down here on my knees and pray for him?  Yes, that was the thought

coming up in me; but it would be the first time I ever did pray.

It's queer; very queer; and he's queer too; aye, take him fore

and aft, he's about the queerest old man Stubb ever sailed with.

How he flashed at me!--his eyes like powder-pans! is he mad!

Anyway there's something's on his mind, as sure as there

must be something on a deck when it cracks.  He aint in his

bed now, either, more than three hours out of the twenty-four;

and he don't sleep then.  Didn't that Dough-Boy, the steward,

tell me that of a morning he always finds the old man's hammock

clothes all rumpled and tumbled, and the sheets down at the foot,

and the coverlid almost tied into knots, and the pillow a sort

of frightful hot, as though a baked brick had been on it?

A hot old man!  I guess he's got what some folks ashore

call a conscience; it's a kind of Tic-Dolly-row they say--

worse nor a toothache.  Well, well; I don't know what it is,

but the Lord keep me from catching it.  He's full of riddles;

I wonder what he goes into the after hold for, every night,

as Dough-Boy tells me he suspects; what's that for, I should

like to know?  Who's made appointments with him in the hold?

Ain't that queer, now?  But there's no telling, it's the old game--

Here goes for a snooze.  Damn me, it's worth a fellow's

while to be born into the world, if only to fall right asleep.

And now that I think of it, that's about the first thing

babies do, and that's a sort of queer, too.  Damn me,

but all things are queer, come to think of 'em.  But that's

against my principles.  Think not, is my eleventh commandment;

and sleep when you can, is my twelfth--So here goes again.

But how's that? didn't he call me a dog? blazes! he called me ten

times a donkey, and piled a lot of jackasses on top of that!

He might as well have kicked me, and done with it.

Maybe he did kick me, and I didn't observe it, I was so taken all

aback with his brow, somehow.  It flashed like a bleached bone.

What the devil's the matter with me?  I don't stand right on my legs.

Coming afoul of that old man has a sort of turned me wrong side out.

By the Lord, I must have been dreaming, though--How? how? how?--

but the only way's to stash it; so here goes to hammock again;

and in the morning, I'll see how this plaguey juggling thinks

over by daylight."







CHAPTER 30



The Pipe





When Stubb had departed, Ahab stood for a while leaning over the bulwarks;

and then, as had been usual with him of late, calling a sailor of

the watch, he sent him below for his ivory stool, and also his pipe.

Lighting the pipe at the binnacle lamp and planting the stool on

the weather side of the deck, he sat and smoked.



In old Norse times, the thrones of the sea-loving Danish kings

were fabricated, saith tradition, of the tusks of the narwhale.

How could one look at Ahab then, seated on that tripod of bones,

without bethinking him of the royalty it symbolized?

For a Khan of the plank, and a king of the sea and a great lord

of Leviathans was Ahab.



Some moments passed, during which the thick vapor came

from his mouth in quick and constant puffs, which blew back

again into his face.  "How now," he soliloquized at last,

withdrawing the tube, "this smoking no longer soothes.

Oh, my pipe! hard must it go with me if thy charm be gone!

Here have I been unconsciously toiling, not pleasuring--

aye, and ignorantly smoking to windward all the while; to windward,

and with such nervous whiffs, as if, like the dying whale,

my final jets were the strongest and fullest of trouble.

What business have I with this pipe?  This thing that is

meant for sereneness, to send up mild white vapors among

mild white hairs, not among torn iron-grey locks like mine.

I'll smoke no more-"



He tossed the still lighted pipe into the sea.  The fire hissed

in the waves; the same instant the ship shot by the bubble

the sinking pipe made.  With slouched hat, Ahab lurchingly

paced the planks.







CHAPTER 31



Queen Mab





Next morning Stubb accosted Flask.



"Such a queer dream, King-Post, I never had.  You know the old man's

ivory leg, well I dreamed he kicked me with it; and when I tried

to kick back, upon my soul, my little man, I kicked my leg right off!

And then, presto!  Ahab seemed a pyramid, and I like a blazing fool,

kept kicking at it.  But what was still more curious, Flask--you know

how curious all dreams are--through all this rage that I was in,

I somehow seemed to be thinking to myself, that after all,

it was not much of an insult, that kick from Ahab.  'Why,' thinks I,

'what's the row?  It's not a real leg, only a false one.'

And there's a mighty difference between a living thump and a dead thump.

That's what makes a blow from the hand, Flask, fifty times

more savage to bear than a blow from a cane.  The living member--

that makes the living insult, my little man.  And thinks I to myself

all the while, mind, while I was stubbing my silly toes against

that cursed pyramid--so confoundedly contradictory was it all,

all the while, I say, I was thinking to myself, 'what's his leg now,

but a cane-. a whale-bone cane.  Yes,' thinks I, 'it was only

a playful cudgelling--in fact, only a whaleboning that he gave me--

not a base kick.  Besides,' thinks I, 'look at it once; why, the end

of it--the foot part--what a small sort of end it is; whereas, if a

broad footed farmer kicked me, there's a devilish broad insult.

But this insult is whittled down to a point only.'  But now comes

the greatest joke of the dream, Flask.  While I was battering away

at the pyramid, a sort of badger-haired old merman, with a hump

on his back, takes me by the shoulders, and slews me round.

'What are you 'bout?' says he.  Slid! man, but I was frightened.

Such a phiz!  But, somehow, next moment I was over the fright.

'What am I about?' says I at last.  'And what business is that of yours,

I should like to know, Mr. Humpback?  Do you want a kick?'

By the lord, Flask, I had no sooner said that, than he turned

round his stern to me, bent over, and dragging up a lot of seaweed

he had for a clout--what do you think, I saw?--why thunder alive,

man, his stern was stuck full of marlinspikes, with the points out.

Says I on second thought, 'I guess I won't kick you, old fellow.'

'Wise Stubb,' said he, 'wise Stubb;' and kept muttering it all

the time, a sort of eating of his own gums like a chimney hag.

Seeing he wasn't going to stop saying over his 'wise Stubb,

wise Stubb,' I thought I might as well fall to kicking the pyramid again.

But I had only just lifted my foot for it, when he roared out,

'Stop that kicking!'  'Halloa,' says I, 'what's the matter now,

old fellow?'  'Look ye here,' says he; 'let's argue the insult.

Captain Ahab kicked ye, didn't he?'  'Yes, he did,' says I--'right here

it was.'  'Very good,' says he--'he used his ivory leg, didn't he?'

'Yes, he did,' says I. 'Well then,' says he, 'wise Stubb, what have

you to complain of?  Didn't he kick with right good will? it wasn't

a common pitch pine leg he kicked with, was it?  No, you were kicked

by a great man, and with a beautiful ivory leg, Stubb.  It's an honor;

I consider it an honor.  Listen, wise Stubb.  In old England

the greatest lords think it great glory to be slapped by a queen,

and made garter-knights of; but, be your boast, Stubb, that ye were

kicked by old Ahab, and made a wise man of.  Remember what I say;

be kicked by him; account his kicks honors; and on no account kick back;

for you can't help yourself, wise Stubb.  Don't you see that pyramid?'

With that, he all of a sudden seemed somehow, in some queer fashion,

to swim off into the air.  I snored; rolled over; and there I was

in my hammock!  Now, what do you think of that dream, Flask?"



"I don't know; it seems a sort of foolish to me, tho.'"



"May be; may be.  But it's made a wise man of me, Flask.  D'ye see Ahab

standing there, sideways looking over the stern?  Well, the best thing

you can do, Flask, is to let the old man alone; never speak to him,

whatever he says.  Halloa!  What's that he shouts?  Hark!"



"Mast-head, there!  Look sharp, all of ye!  There are whales hereabouts!



If ye see a white one, split your lungs for him!



"What do you think of that now, Flask? ain't there a small

drop of something queer about that, eh?  A white whale--did ye

mark that, man?  Look ye--there's something special in the wind.

Stand by for it, Flask.  Ahab has that that's bloody on his mind.

But, mum; he comes this way."







CHAPTER 32



Cetology





Already we are boldly launched upon the deep; but soon we

shall be lost in its unshored harborless immensities.

Ere that come to pass; ere the Pequod's weedy hull rolls

side by side with the barnacled hulls of the leviathan;

at the outset it is but well to attend to a matter almost

indispensable to a thorough appreciative understanding of the more

special leviathanic revelations and allusions of all sorts

which are to follow.



It is some systematized exhibition of the whale in his broad genera,

that I would now fain put before you.  Yet is it no easy task.

The classification of the constituents of a chaos, nothing less

is here essayed.  Listen to what the best and latest authorities

t/files/moby11.txt  view on Meta::CPAN

the ship to the boats, which, for one instant, seemed on the point

of being brought with a deadly dash against the vessel's side.

But having plenty of line yet in the tubs, and the whale not sounding

very rapidly, they paid out abundance of rope, and at the same

time pulled with all their might so as to get ahead of the ship.

For a few minutes the struggle was intensely critical;

for while they still slacked out the tightened line in one direction,

and still plied their oars in another, the contending strain

threatened to take them under.  But it was only a few feet advance

they sought to gain.  And they stuck to it till they did gain it;

when instantly, a swift tremor was felt running like lightning

along the keel, as the strained line, scraping beneath the ship,

suddenly rose to view under her bows, snapping and quivering;

and so flinging off its drippings, that the drops fell like

bits of broken glass on the water, while the whale beyond

also rose to sight, and once more the boats were free to fly.

But the fagged whale abated his speed, and blindly altering his course,

went round the stern of the ship towing the two boats after him,

so that they performed a complete circuit.



Meantime, they hauled more and more upon their lines, till close

flanking him on both sides, Stubb answered Flask with lance for lance;

and thus round and round the Pequod the battle went, while the multitudes

of sharks that had before swum round the Sperm Whale's body, rushed to

the fresh blood that was spilled, thirstily drinking at every new gash,

as the eager Israelites did at the new bursting fountains that poured

from the smitten rock.



At last his spout grew thick, and with a frightful roll and vomit,

he turned upon his back a corpse.



While the two headsmen were engaged in making fast cords to his flukes,

and in other ways getting the mass in readiness for towing,

some conversation ensued between them.



"I wonder what the old man wants with this lump of foul lard,"

said Stubb, not without some disgust at the thought of having

to do with so ignoble a leviathan.



"Wants with it?" said Flask, coiling some spare line in the boat's bow,

"did you never hear that the ship which but once has a Sperm Whale's

head hoisted on her starboard side, and at the same time a Right Whale's

on the larboard; did you never hear, Stubb, that that ship can

never afterwards capsize?"



"Why not?



"I don't know, but I heard that gamboge ghost of a Fedallah

saying so, and he seems to know all about ships' charms.  But I

sometimes think he'll charm the ship to no good at last.

I don't half like that chap, Stubb.  Did you ever notice how that

tusk of his is a sort of carved into a snake's head, Stubb?"



"Sink him!  I never look at him at all; but if ever I get a chance

of a dark night, and he standing hard by the bulwarks, and no one by;

look down there, Flask"--pointing into the sea with a peculiar motion

of both hands--"Aye, will I!  Flask, I take that Fedallah to be

the devil in disguise.  Do you believe that cock and bull story about

his having been stowed away on board ship?  He's the devil, I say.

The reason why you don't see his tail, is because he tucks it up

out of sight; he carries it coiled away in his pocket, I guess.

Blast him! now that I think of it, he's always wanting oakum to stuff

into the toes of his boots."



"He sleeps in his boots, don't he?  He hasn't got any hammock;

but I've seen him lay of nights in a coil of rigging."



"No doubt, and it's because of his cursed tail; he coils it down,

do ye see, in the eye of the rigging."



"What's the old man have so much to do with him for?"



"Striking up a swap or a bargain, I suppose."



"Bargain?--about what?"



"Why, do ye see, the old man is hard bent after that White Whale,

and the devil there is trying to come round him, and get him to swap

away his silver watch, or his soul, or something of that sort,

and then he'll surrender Moby Dick."



"Pooh!  Stubb, you are skylarking; how can Fedallah do that?"



"I don't know, Flask, but the devil is a curious chap, and a

wicked one, I tell ye.  Why, they say as how he went a sauntering

into the old flag-ship once, switching his tail about devilish easy

and gentlemanlike, and inquiring if the old governor was at home.

Well, he was at home, and asked the devil what he wanted.

The devil, switching his hoofs, up and says, 'I want John.'  'What for?'

says the old governor.  'What business is that of yours,' says the devil,

getting mad,--'I want to use him.'  'Take him,' says the governor--

and by the Lord, Flask, if the devil didn't give John the Asiatic cholera

before he got through with him, I'll eat this whale in one mouthful.

But look sharp--ain't you all ready there?  Well, then, pull ahead,

and let's get the whale alongside."



"I think I remember some such story as you were telling," said Flask,

when at last the two boats were slowly advancing with their burden

towards the ship, "but I can't remember where."



"Three Spaniards?  Adventures of those three bloody-minded soldadoes?

Did ye read it there, Flask?  I guess ye did?"



"No:  never saw such a book; heard of it, though.  But now,

tell me, Stubb, do you suppose that that devil you was speaking

of just now, was the same you say is now on board the Pequod?"



"Am I the same man that helped kill this whale?  Doesn't the devil

live for ever; who ever heard that the devil was dead?

Did you ever see any parson a wearing mourning for the devil?

And if the devil has a latch-key to get into the admiral's

cabin, don't you suppose he can crawl into a porthole?

Tell me that, Mr. Flask?"



"How old do you suppose Fedallah is, Stubb?"



"Do you see that mainmast there?" pointing to the ship; "well, that's

the figure one; now take all the hoops in the Pequod's hold,

and string 'em along in a row with that mast, for oughts,

do you see; well, that wouldn't begin to be Fedallah's age.

Nor all the coopers in creation couldn't show hoops enough

to make oughts enough."



"But see here, Stubb, I thought you a little boasted just now,

that you meant to give Fedallah a sea-toss, if you got a good chance.

Now, if he's so old as all those hoops of yours come to, and if he is

going to live for ever, what good will it do to pitch him overboard--

tell me that?



"Give him a good ducking, anyhow."



"But he'd crawl back."



"Duck him again; and keep ducking him."



"Suppose he should take it into his head to duck you, though--

yes, and drown you--what then?"



"I should like to see him try it; I'd give him such a pair of black eyes

that he wouldn't dare to show his face in the admiral's cabin again

for a long while, let alone down in the orlop there, where he lives,

and hereabouts on the upper decks where he sneaks so much.

Damn the devil, Flask; do you suppose I'm afraid of the devil?

Who's afraid of him, except the old governor who daresn't catch

him and put him in double-darbies, as he deserves, but lets him

go about kidnapping people; aye, and signed a bond with him,

that all the people the devil kidnapped, he'd roast for him?

There's a governor!"



"Do you suppose Fedallah wants to kidnap Captain Ahab?"



"Do I suppose it?  You'll know it before long, Flask.  But I am

going now to keep a sharp look-out on him; and if I see anything

very suspicious going on, I'll just take him by the nape of his neck,

and say--Look here, Beelzebub, you don't do it; and if he makes

any fuss, by the Lord I'll make a grab into his pocket for his tail,

take it to the capstan, and give him such a wrenching and heaving,

that his tail will come short off at the stump--do you see; and then,

I rather guess when he finds himself docked in that queer fashion,

he'll sneak off without the poor satisfaction of feeling his tail

between his legs."



"And what will you do with the tail, Stubb?"



"Do with it?  Sell it for an ox whip when we get home;--what else?"



"Now, do you mean what you say, and have been saying all along, Stubb?"



"Mean or not mean, here we are at the ship."



The boats were here hailed, to tow the whale on the larboard side,

where fluke chains and other necessaries were already prepared

for securing him.



"Didn't I tell you so?" said Flask; "yes, you'll soon see this

right whale's head hoisted up opposite that parmacety's."



In good time, Flask's saying proved true.  As before, the Pequod steeply

leaned over towards the sperm whale's head, now, by the counterpoise

of both heads, she regained her even keel; though sorely strained,

you may well believe.  So, when on one side you hoist in Locke's head,

you go over that way; but now, on the other side, hoist in Kant's and you

come back again; but in very poor plight.  Thus, some minds for ever keep

trimming boat.  Oh, ye foolish! throw all these thunder-heads overboard,

and then you will float light and right.



In disposing of the body of a right whale, when brought alongside

the ship, the same preliminary proceedings commonly take place

as in the case of a sperm whale; only, in the latter instance,

the head is cut off whole, but in the former the lips

and tongue are separately removed and hoisted on deck,

with all the well known black bone attached to what is called

the crown-piece. But nothing like this, in the present case,

had been done.  The carcases of both whales had dropped astern;

and the head-laden ship not a little resembled a mule carrying

a pair of overburdening panniers.



Meantime, Fedallah was calmly eyeing the right whale's head,

and ever and anon glancing from the deep wrinkles there to the lines

in his own hand.  And Ahab chanced so to stand, that the Parsee

occupied his shadow; while, if the Parsee's shadow was there at

all it seemed only to blend with, and lengthen Ahab's. As the crew

toiled on, Laplandish speculations were bandied among them,

concerning all these passing things.







CHAPTER 74



The Sperm Whale's Head - Contrasted View





Here, now, are two great whales, laying their heads together;

let us join them, and lay together our own.



Of the grand order of folio leviathans, the Sperm Whale and

the Right Whale are by far the most noteworthy.  They are the only

whales regularly hunted by man.  To the Nantucketer, they present

the two extremes of all the known varieties of the whale.

t/files/moby11.txt  view on Meta::CPAN

round chapter; and now I'll read it off, straight out of the book.

Come, Almanack!  To begin:  there's Aries, or the Ram--

lecherous dog, he begets us; then, Taurus, or the Bull--

he bumps us the first thing; then Gemini, or the Twins--

that is, Virtue and Vice; we try to reach Virtue,

when lo! comes Cancer the Crab, and drags us back; and here,

going from Virtue, Leo, a roaring Lion, lies in the path--

he gives a few fierce bites and surly dabs with his paw;

we escape, and hail Virgo, the Virgin! that's our first love;

we marry and think to be happy for aye, when pop comes Libra,

or the Scales--happiness weighed and found wanting; and while we

are very sad about that, Lord! how we suddenly jump, as Scorpio,

or the Scorpion, stings us in the rear; we are curing the wound,

when whang comes the arrows all round; Sagittarius, or the Archer,

is amusing himself.  As we pluck out the shafts, stand aside!

here's the battering-ram, Capricornus, or the Goat; full tilt,

he comes rushing, and headlong we are tossed; when Aquarius,

or the Waterbearer, pours out his whole deluge and drowns us;

and to wind up with Pisces, or the Fishes, we sleep.

There's a sermon now, writ in high heaven, and the sun goes through

it every year, and yet comes out of it all alive and hearty.

Jollily he, aloft there, wheels through toil and trouble; and so,

alow here, does jolly Stubb.  Oh, jolly's the word for aye!

Adieu, Doubloon!  But stop; here comes little King-Post;

dodge round the try-works, now, and let's hear what he'll have

to say.  There; he's before it; he'll out with something presently.

So, so; he's beginning."



"I see nothing here, but a round thing made of gold, and whoever raises

a certain whale, this round thing belongs to him.  So, what's all

this staring been about?  It is worth sixteen dollars, that's true;

and at two cents the cigar, that's nine hundred and sixty cigars.

I won't smoke dirty pipes like Stubb, but I like cigars, and here's nine

hundred and sixty of them; so here goes Flask aloft to spy 'em out."



"Shall I call that Wise or foolish, now; if it be really wise it has

a foolish look to it; yet, if it be really foolish, then has it a sort

of wiseish look to it.  But, avast; here comes our old Manxman--the old

hearse-driver, he must have been, that is, before he took to the sea.

He luffs up before the doubloon; halloa, and goes round on the other

side of the mast; why, there's a horse-shoe nailed on that side;

and now he's back again; what does that mean?  Hark! he's muttering--

voice like an old worn-out coffee-mill. Prick ears, and listen!"



"If the White Whale be raised, it must be in a month and a day,

when the sun stands in some one of these signs.  I've studied signs,

and know their marks; they were taught me two score years ago,

by the old witch in Copenhagen.  Now, in what sign will the sun then be?

The horse-shoe sign; for there it is, right opposite the gold.

And what's the horse-shoe sign?  The lion is the horse-shoe sign--

the roaring and devouring lion.  Ship, old ship! my old head shakes

to think of thee."



"There's another rendering now; but still one text.  All sorts of men

in one kind of world, you see.  Dodge again! here comes Queequeg--

all tattooing--looks like the signs of the Zodiac himself.  What says

the Cannibal?  As I live he's comparing notes; looking at his thigh bone;

thinks the sun is in the thigh, or in the calf, or in the bowels,

I suppose, as the old women talk Surgeon's Astronomy in the back country.

And by Jove, he's found something there in the vicinity of his thigh--

I guess it's Sagittarius, or the Archer.  No:  he don't know what to make

of the doubloon; he takes it for an old button off some king's trowsers.

But, aside again! here comes that ghost-devil, Fedallah; tail coiled

out of sight as usual, oakum in the toes of his pumps as usual.

What does he say, with that look of his?  Ah, only makes a sign

to the sign and bows himself; there is a sun on the coin--

fire worshipper, depend upon it.  Ho! more and more.  This way comes Pip--

poor boy! would he had died, or I; he's half horrible to me.

He too has been watching all of these interpreters myself included--

and look now, he comes to read, with that unearthly idiot face.

Stand away again and hear him.  Hark!"



"I look, you look, he looks; we look, ye look, they look."



"Upon my soul, he's been studying Murray's Grammar!  Improving his mind,

poor fellow!  But what's that he says now--hist!"



"I look, you look, he looks; we look, ye look, they look."



"Why, he's getting it by heart--hist! again."



"I look, you look, he looks; we look, ye look, they look."



"Well, that's funny."



"And I, you, and he; and we, ye, and they, are all bats;

and I'm a crow, especially when I stand a'top of this pine

tree here.  Caw! caw! caw! caw! caw! caw!  Ain't I a crow?

And where's the scare-crow? There he stands; two bones stuck

into a pair of old trowsers, and two more poked into the sleeves

of an old jacket."



"Wonder if he means me?--complimentary--poor lad!--I could go

hang myself.  Any way, for the present, I'll quit Pip's vicinity.

I can stand the rest, for they have plain wits; but he's too

crazy-witty for my sanity.  So, so, I leave him muttering."



"Here's the ship's navel, this doubloon here, and they are all one fire

to unscrew it.  But, unscrew your navel, and what's the consequence?

Then again, if it stays here, that is ugly, too, for when aught's

nailed to the mast it's a sign that things grow desperate.

Ha! ha! old Ahab! the White Whale; he'll nail ye!  This is a pine tree.

My father, in old Tolland county, cut down a pine tree once, and found

a silver ring grown over in it; some old darkey's wedding ring.

How did it get there?  And so they'll say in the resurrection,

when they come to fish up this old mast, and find a doubloon lodged in it,

with bedded oysters for the shaggy bark.  Oh, the gold! the precious,

precious gold!--the green miser'll hoard ye soon!  Hish! hish!

God goes 'mong the worlds blackberrying.  Cook! ho, cook! and cook us!

Jenny! hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, Jenny, Jenny! and get your hoe-cake done!"







CHAPTER 100



Leg and Arm



The Pequod of Nantucket, Meets the Samuel Enderby, of London

t/files/moby11.txt  view on Meta::CPAN

He was a pure manipulator; his brain, if he had ever had one,

must have early oozed along into the muscles of his fingers.

He was like one of those unreasoning but still highly useful,

multum in parvo, Sheffield contrivances, assuming the exterior--

though a little swelled--of a common pocket knife; but containing,

not only blades of various sizes, but also screw-drivers,

cork-screws, tweezers, awls, pens, rulers, nail-filers, countersinkers.

So, if his superiors wanted to use the carpenter for a screw-driver,

all they had to do was to open that part of him, and the screw was fast:

or if for tweezers, take him up by the legs, and there they were.



Yet, as previously hinted, this omnitooled, open-and-shut carpenter,

was, after all, no mere machine of an automaton.  If he did not

have a common soul in him, he had a subtle something that somehow

anomalously did its duty.  What that was, whether essence of quicksilver,

or a few drops of hartshorn, there is no telling.  But there it was;

and there it had abided for now some sixty years or more.

And this it was, this same unaccountable, cunning life-principle in him;

this it was, that kept him a great part of the time soliloquizing;

but only like an unreasoning wheel, which also hummingly soliloquizes;

or rather, his body was a sentry-box and this soliloquizer on guard there,

and talking all the time to keep himself awake.







CHAPTER 108



Ahab and the Carpenter



The Deck - First Night Watch







(Carpenter standing before his vice-bench, and by the light

of two lanterns busily filing the ivory joist for the leg,

which joist is firmly fixed in the vice.  Slabs of ivory,

leather straps, pads, screws, and various tools of all sorts lying

about the bench.  Forward, the red flame of the forge is seen,

where the blacksmith is at work.)





Drat the file, and drat the bone!  That is hard which should be soft,

and that is soft which should be hard.  So we go, who file old jaws

and shin bones.  Let's try another.  Aye, now, this works better

(sneezes). Halloa, this bone dust is (sneezes)--why it's

(sneezes)--yes it's (sneezes)--bless my soul, it won't let me speak!

This is what an old fellow gets now for working in dead lumber.

Saw a live tree, and you don't get this dust; amputate a live bone,

and you don't get it (sneezes). Come, come, you old Smut, there,

bear a hand, and let's have that ferrule and buckle-screw; I'll be ready

for them presently.  Lucky now (sneezes) there's no knee-joint to make;

that might puzzle a little; but a mere shin-bone--why it's easy

as making hop-poles; only I should like to put a good finish on.

Time, time; if I but only had the time, I could turn him out as

neat a leg now as ever (sneezes) scraped to a lady in a parlor.

Those buckskin legs and calves of legs I've seen in shop windows

wouldn't compare at all.  They soak water, they do; and of course

get rheumatic, and have to be doctored (sneezes) with washes and lotions,

just like live legs.  There; before I saw it off, now, I must call

his old Mogulship, and see whether the length will be all right;

too short, if anything, I guess.  Ha! that's the heel; we are in luck;

here he comes, or it's somebody else, that's certain.  AHAB (advancing)



(During the ensuing scene, the carpenter continues sneezing at times).





Well, manmaker!



Just in time, sir.  If the captain pleases, I will now mark the length.

Let me measure, sir.



Measured for a leg! good.  Well, it's not the first time.

About it!  There; keep thy finger on it.  This is a cogent

vice thou hast here, carpenter; let me feel its grip once.

So, so; it does pinch some.



Oh, sir, it will break bones--beware, beware!



No fear; I like a good grip; I like to feel something in this

slippery world that can hold, man.  What's Prometheus about there?--

the blacksmith, I mean--what's he about?



He must be forging the buckle-screw, sir, now.



Right.  It's a partnership; he supplies the muscle part.

He makes a fierce red flame there!



Aye, sir; he must have the white heat for this kind of fine work.



Um-m. So he must.  I do deem it now a most meaning thing,

that that old Greek, Prometheus, who made men, they say, should have

been a blacksmith, and animated them with fire; for what's made

in fire must properly belong to fire; and so hell's probable.

How the soot flies!  This must be the remainder the Greek made

the Africans of.  Carpenter, when he's through with that buckle,

tell him to forge a pair of steel shoulder-blades; there's a pedlar

aboard with a crushing pack.



Sir?



Hold; while Prometheus is about it, I'll order a complete man

after a desirable pattern.  Imprimis, fifty feet high in his socks;

then, chest modelled after the Thames Tunnel then, legs with roots

to 'em, to stay in one place; then, arms three feet through the wrist;

no heart at all, brass forehead, and about a quarter of an acre

of fine brains; and let me see--shall I order eyes to see outwards?

No, but put a sky-light on top of his head to illuminate inwards.

There, take the order, and away.



Now, what's he speaking about, and who's he speaking to,

I should like to know?  Shall I keep standing here? (aside.)



'Tis but indifferent architecture to make a blind dome; here's one.

No, no, no; I must have a lantern.



Ho, ho!  That's it, hey?  Here are two, sir; one will serve my turn.



What art thou thrusting that thief-catcher into my face for, man?

Thrusted light is worse than presented pistols.



I thought, sir, that you spoke to carpenter.





Carpenter? why that's--but no;--a very tidy, and, I may say, an extremely

gentlemanlike sort of business thou art in here, carpenter;--or would'st

thou rather work in clay?



Sir?--Clay? clay, sir?  That's mud; we leave clay to ditchers, sir.



The fellow's impious!  What art thou sneezing about?



Bone is rather dusty, sir.



Take the hint, then; and when thou art dead, never bury thyself

under living people's noses.



Sir?--oh! ah!--I guess so; so;--yes, yes--oh dear!



Look ye, carpenter, I dare say thou callest thyself a right good

workmanlike workman, eh?  Well, then, will it speak thoroughly well

for thy work, if, when I come to mount this leg thou makest, I shall

nevertheless feel another leg in the same identical place with it;

that is, carpenter, my old lost leg; the flesh and blood one, I mean.

Canst thou not drive that old Adam away?



Truly, sir, I begin to understand somewhat now.

Yes, I have heard something curious on that score, sir;

how that a dismasted man never entirely loses the feeling

of his old spar, but it will be still pricking him at times.

May I humbly ask if it be really so, sir?



It is, man.  Look, put thy live leg here in the place where mine once was;

so, now, here is only one distinct leg to the eye, yet two to the soul.

Where thou feelest tingling life; there, exactly there, there to a hair,

do I. Is't a riddle?



I should humbly call it a poser, sir.



Hist, then.  How dost thou know that some entire, living, thinking thing

may not be invisibly and uninterpenetratingly standing precisely

where thou now standest; aye, and standing there in thy spite?

In thy most solitary hours, then, dost thou not fear eavesdroppers?

Hold, don't speak!  And if I still feel the smart of my crushed leg,

though it be now so long dissolved; then, why mayest not thou, carpenter,

feel the fiery pains of hell for ever, and without a body?  Hah!



Good Lord!  Truly, sir, if it comes to that, I must calculate over again;

I think I didn't carry a small figure, sir.



Look ye, pudding-heads should never grant premises.--How long

before this leg is done?



Perhaps an hour, sir.



Bungle away at it then, and bring it to me (turns to go).

Oh, Life.  Here I am, proud as Greek god, and yet standing debtor

to this blockhead for a bone to stand on!  Cursed be that mortal

inter-indebtedness which will not do away with ledgers.

I would be free as air; and I'm down in the whole world's books.

I am so rich, I could have given bid for bid with the wealthiest

Praetorians at the auction of the Roman empire (which was the world's);

and yet I owe for the flesh in the tongue I brag with.  By heavens!

I'll get a crucible, and into it, and dissolve myself down to one small,

compendious vertebra.  So.



Carpenter ( resuming his work).





Well, well, well!  Stubb knows him best of all, and Stubb always says

he's queer; says nothing but that one sufficient little word queer;

he's queer, says Stubb; he's queer--queer, queer; and keeps dinning it

into Mr. Starbuck all the time--queer--sir--queer, queer, very queer.

And here's his leg.  Yes, now that I think of it, here's his bed-fellow!

has a stick of whale's jaw-bone for a wife!  And this is his leg;

he'll stand on this.  What was that now about one leg standing

in three places, and all three places standing in one hell--

how was that?  Oh!  I don't wonder he looked so scornful at me!

t/files/moby11.txt  view on Meta::CPAN

The Manxman took the reel, and holding it high up, by the projecting

handle-ends of the spindle, round which the spool of line revolved,

so stood with the angular log hanging downwards, till Ahab

advanced to him.



Ahab stood before him, and was lightly unwinding some thirty

or forty turns to form a preliminary hand-coil to toss overboard,

when the old Manxman, who was intently eyeing both him and the line,

made bold to speak.



"Sir, I mistrust it; this line looks far gone, long heat and wet

have spoiled it."



"'Twill hold, old gentleman.  Long heat and wet, have they spoiled thee?

Thou seem'st to hold.  Or, truer perhaps, life holds thee; not thou it."



"I hold the spool, sir.  But just as my captain says.

With these grey hairs of mine 'tis not worth while disputing,

'specially with a superior, who'll ne'er confess."



"What's that?  There now's a patched professor in Queen Nature's

granite-founded College; but methinks he's too subservient.

Where wert thou born?"



"In the little rocky Isle of Man, sir."



"Excellent!  Thou'st hit the world by that."



"I know not, sir, but I was born there."



"In the Isle of Man, hey?  Well, the other way, it's good.

Here's a man from Man; a man born in once independent Man, and now

unmanned of Man; which is sucked in--by what?  Up with the reel!

The dead, blind wall butts all inquiring heads at last.

Up with it!  So."



The log was heaved.  The loose coils rapidly straightened out in a long

dragging line astern, and then, instantly, the reel began to whirl.

In turn, jerkingly raised and lowered by the rolling billows, the towing

resistance of the log caused the old reelman to stagger strangely.



"Hold hard!"



Snap! the overstrained line sagged down in one long festoon;

the tugging log was gone.



"I crush the quadrant, the thunder turns the needles,

and now the mad sea parts the log-line. But Ahab can mend all.

Haul in here, Tahitian; reel up, Manxman.  And look ye,

let the carpenter make another log, and mend thou the line.

See to it."



"There he goes now; to him nothing's happened; but to me,

the skewer seems loosening out of the middle of the world.

Haul in, haul in, Tahitian!  These lines run whole, and whirling out:

come in broken, and dragging slow.  Ha, Pip? come to help; eh, Pip?"



"Pip? whom call ye Pip?  Pip jumped from the whaleboat.

Pip's missing.  Let's see now if ye haven't fished him

up here, fisherman.  It drags hard; I guess he's holding on.

Jerk him, Tahiti!  Jerk him off we haul in no cowards here.

Ho! there's his arm just breaking water.  A hatchet! a hatchet!

cut it off--we haul in no cowards here.  Captain Ahab! sir,

sir! here's Pip, trying to get on board again."



"Peace, thou crazy loon," cried the Manxman, seizing him by the arm.

"Away from the quarter-deck!"



"The greater idiot ever scolds the lesser," muttered Ahab, advancing.

"Hands off from that holiness!  Where sayest thou Pip was, boy?



"Astern there, sir, astern!  Lo! lo!"



"And who art thou, boy?  I see not my reflection in the vacant pupils

of thy eyes.  Oh God! that man should be a thing for immortal souls

to sieve through!  Who art thou, boy?"



"Bell-boy, sir; ship's-crier; ding, dong, ding!  Pip!  Pip!  Pip!  One

hundred pounds of clay reward for Pip; five feet high--looks cowardly--

quickest known by that!  Ding, dong, ding!  Who's seen Pip the coward?"



"There can be no hearts above the snow-line. Oh, ye frozen

heavens! look down here.  Ye did beget this luckless child,

and have abandoned him, ye creative libertines.  Here, boy;

Ahab's cabin shall be Pip's home henceforth, while Ahab lives.

Thou touchest my inmost centre, boy; thou art tied to me by cords

woven of my heart-strings. Come, let's down."



"What's this? here's velvet shark-skin," intently gazing at Ahab's hand,

and feeling it.  "Ah, now, had poor Pip but felt so kind a thing as this,

perhaps he had ne'er been lost!  This seems to me, sir, as a man-rope;

something that weak souls may hold by.  Oh, sir, let old Perth now come

and rivet these two hands together; the black one with the white,

for I will not let this go."



"Oh, boy, nor will I thee, unless I should thereby drag thee

to worse horrors than are here.  Come, then, to my cabin.

Lo! ye believers in gods all goodness, and in man all ill,

lo you! see the omniscient gods oblivious of suffering man;

and man, though idiotic, and knowing not what he does, yet full

of the sweet things of love and gratitude.  Come!  I feel prouder

leading thee by thy black hand, than though I grasped an Emperor's!"



"There go two daft ones now," muttered the old Manxman.

"One daft with strength, the other daft with weakness.

But here's the end of the rotten line--all dripping, too.

Mend it, eh?  I think we had best have a new line altogether.

I'll see Mr. Stubb about it."







CHAPTER 126



The Life-Buoy





Steering now south-eastward by Ahab's levelled steel,

and her progress solely determined by Ahab's level log and line;

the Pequod held on her path towards the Equator.  Making so long

a passage through such unfrequented waters, descrying no ships,