liposuction board lumbar molder bbl post-surgical & back

-chapter 105.does the whale's magnitude diminish?--will he perish? inasmuch, then, as this leviathan comesfloundering down upon us from the head- waters of the eternities, it may be fitlyinquired, whether, in the long course of his generations, he has not degeneratedfrom the original bulk of his sires. but upon investigation we find, that notonly are the whales of the present day superior in magnitude to those whose fossilremains are found in the tertiary system (embracing a distinct geological period prior to man), but of the whales found inthat tertiary system, those belonging to

its latter formations exceed in size thoseof its earlier ones. of all the pre-adamite whales yet exhumed,by far the largest is the alabama one mentioned in the last chapter, and that wasless than seventy feet in length in the skeleton. whereas, we have already seen, that thetape-measure gives seventy-two feet for the skeleton of a large sized modern whale. and i have heard, on whalemen's authority,that sperm whales have been captured near a hundred feet long at the time of capture. but may it not be, that while the whales ofthe present hour are an advance in

magnitude upon those of all previousgeological periods; may it not be, that since adam's time they have degenerated? assuredly, we must conclude so, if we areto credit the accounts of such gentlemen as pliny, and the ancient naturalistsgenerally. for pliny tells us of whales that embracedacres of living bulk, and aldrovandus of others which measured eight hundred feet inlength--rope walks and thames tunnels of whales! and even in the days of banks and solander,cooke's naturalists, we find a danish member of the academy of sciences settingdown certain iceland whales (reydan-siskur,

or wrinkled bellies) at one hundred and twenty yards; that is, three hundred andsixty feet. and lacepede, the french naturalist, in hiselaborate history of whales, in the very beginning of his work (page 3), sets downthe right whale at one hundred metres, three hundred and twenty-eight feet. and this work was published so late as a.d.1825. but will any whaleman believe thesestories? no. the whale of to-day is as big as hisancestors in pliny's time. and if ever i go where pliny is, i, awhaleman (more than he was), will make bold

to tell him so. because i cannot understand how it is, thatwhile the egyptian mummies that were buried thousands of years before even pliny wasborn, do not measure so much in their coffins as a modern kentuckian in his socks; and while the cattle and otheranimals sculptured on the oldest egyptian and nineveh tablets, by the relativeproportions in which they are drawn, just as plainly prove that the high-bred, stall- fed, prize cattle of smithfield, not onlyequal, but far exceed in magnitude the fattest of pharaoh's fat kine; in the faceof all this, i will not admit that of all

animals the whale alone should havedegenerated. but still another inquiry remains; oneoften agitated by the more recondite nantucketers. whether owing to the almost omniscientlook-outs at the mast-heads of the whaleships, now penetrating even throughbehring's straits, and into the remotest secret drawers and lockers of the world; and the thousand harpoons and lances dartedalong all continental coasts; the moot point is, whether leviathan can long endureso wide a chase, and so remorseless a havoc; whether he must not at last be

exterminated from the waters, and the lastwhale, like the last man, smoke his last pipe, and then himself evaporate in thefinal puff. comparing the humped herds of whales withthe humped herds of buffalo, which, not forty years ago, overspread by tens ofthousands the prairies of illinois and missouri, and shook their iron manes and scowled with their thunder-clotted browsupon the sites of populous river-capitals, where now the polite broker sells you landat a dollar an inch; in such a comparison an irresistible argument would seem furnished, to show that the hunted whalecannot now escape speedy extinction.

but you must look at this matter in everylight. though so short a period ago--not a goodlifetime--the census of the buffalo in illinois exceeded the census of men now inlondon, and though at the present day not one horn or hoof of them remains in all that region; and though the cause of thiswondrous extermination was the spear of man; yet the far different nature of thewhale-hunt peremptorily forbids so inglorious an end to the leviathan. forty men in one ship hunting the spermwhales for forty-eight months think they have done extremely well, and thank god, ifat last they carry home the oil of forty

fish. whereas, in the days of the old canadianand indian hunters and trappers of the west, when the far west (in whose sunsetsuns still rise) was a wilderness and a virgin, the same number of moccasined men, for the same number of months, mounted onhorse instead of sailing in ships, would have slain not forty, but forty thousandand more buffaloes; a fact that, if need were, could be statistically stated. nor, considered aright, does it seem anyargument in favour of the gradual extinction of the sperm whale, for example,that in former years (the latter part of

the last century, say) these leviathans, in small pods, were encountered much oftenerthan at present, and, in consequence, the voyages were not so prolonged, and werealso much more remunerative. because, as has been elsewhere noticed,those whales, influenced by some views to safety, now swim the seas in immensecaravans, so that to a large degree the scattered solitaries, yokes, and pods, and schools of other days are now aggregatedinto vast but widely separated, unfrequent armies.that is all. and equally fallacious seems the conceit,that because the so-called whale-bone

whales no longer haunt many grounds informer years abounding with them, hence that species also is declining. for they are only being driven frompromontory to cape; and if one coast is no longer enlivened with their jets, then, besure, some other and remoter strand has been very recently startled by theunfamiliar spectacle. furthermore: concerning these lastmentioned leviathans, they have two firm fortresses, which, in all humanprobability, will for ever remain impregnable. and as upon the invasion of their valleys,the frosty swiss have retreated to their

mountains; so, hunted from the savannas andglades of the middle seas, the whale-bone whales can at last resort to their polar citadels, and diving under the ultimateglassy barriers and walls there, come up among icy fields and floes; and in acharmed circle of everlasting december, bid defiance to all pursuit from man. but as perhaps fifty of these whale-bonewhales are harpooned for one cachalot, some philosophers of the forecastle haveconcluded that this positive havoc has already very seriously diminished theirbattalions. but though for some time past a number ofthese whales, not less than 13,000, have

been annually slain on the nor'-west coastby the americans alone; yet there are considerations which render even this circumstance of little or no account as anopposing argument in this matter. natural as it is to be somewhat incredulousconcerning the populousness of the more enormous creatures of the globe, yet whatshall we say to harto, the historian of goa, when he tells us that at one hunting the king of siam took 4,000 elephants; thatin those regions elephants are numerous as droves of cattle in the temperate climes. and there seems no reason to doubt that ifthese elephants, which have now been hunted

for thousands of years, by semiramis, byporus, by hannibal, and by all the successive monarchs of the east--if they still survive there in great numbers, muchmore may the great whale outlast all hunting, since he has a pasture toexpatiate in, which is precisely twice as large as all asia, both americas, europe and africa, new holland, and all the islesof the sea combined. moreover: we are to consider, that from thepresumed great longevity of whales, their probably attaining the age of a century andmore, therefore at any one period of time, several distinct adult generations must becontemporary.

and what that is, we may soon gain someidea of, by imagining all the grave-yards, cemeteries, and family vaults of creationyielding up the live bodies of all the men, women, and children who were alive seventy- five years ago; and adding this countlesshost to the present human population of the globe. wherefore, for all these things, we accountthe whale immortal in his species, however perishable in his individuality. he swam the seas before the continentsbroke water; he once swam over the site of the tuileries, and windsor castle, and thekremlin.

in noah's flood he despised noah's ark; andif ever the world is to be again flooded, like the netherlands, to kill off its rats,then the eternal whale will still survive, and rearing upon the topmost crest of the equatorial flood, spout his frotheddefiance to the skies. chapter 106.ahab's leg. the precipitating manner in which captainahab had quitted the samuel enderby of london, had not been unattended with somesmall violence to his own person. he had lighted with such energy upon athwart of his boat that his ivory leg had received a half-splintering shock.

and when after gaining his own deck, andhis own pivot-hole there, he so vehemently wheeled round with an urgent command to thesteersman (it was, as ever, something about his not steering inflexibly enough); then, the already shaken ivory received such anadditional twist and wrench, that though it still remained entire, and to allappearances lusty, yet ahab did not deem it entirely trustworthy. and, indeed, it seemed small matter forwonder, that for all his pervading, mad recklessness, ahab did at times givecareful heed to the condition of that dead bone upon which he partly stood.

for it had not been very long prior to thepequod's sailing from nantucket, that he had been found one night lying prone uponthe ground, and insensible; by some unknown, and seemingly inexplicable, unimaginable casualty, his ivory limbhaving been so violently displaced, that it had stake-wise smitten, and all but piercedhis groin; nor was it without extreme difficulty that the agonizing wound wasentirely cured. nor, at the time, had it failed to enterhis monomaniac mind, that all the anguish of that then present suffering was but thedirect issue of a former woe; and he too plainly seemed to see, that as the most

poisonous reptile of the marsh perpetuateshis kind as inevitably as the sweetest songster of the grove; so, equally withevery felicity, all miserable events do naturally beget their like. yea, more than equally, thought ahab; sinceboth the ancestry and posterity of grief go further than the ancestry and posterity ofjoy. for, not to hint of this: that it is aninference from certain canonic teachings, that while some natural enjoyments hereshall have no children born to them for the other world, but, on the contrary, shall be followed by the joy-childlessness of allhell's despair; whereas, some guilty mortal

miseries shall still fertilely beget tothemselves an eternally progressive progeny of griefs beyond the grave; not at all to hint of this, there still seems aninequality in the deeper analysis of the thing. for, thought ahab, while even the highestearthly felicities ever have a certain unsignifying pettiness lurking in them,but, at bottom, all heartwoes, a mystic significance, and, in some men, an archangelic grandeur; so do their diligenttracings-out not belie the obvious deduction.

to trail the genealogies of these highmortal miseries, carries us at last among the sourceless primogenitures of the gods;so that, in the face of all the glad, hay- making suns, and soft cymballing, round harvest-moons, we must needs give in tothis: that the gods themselves are not for ever glad. the ineffaceable, sad birth-mark in thebrow of man, is but the stamp of sorrow in the signers. unwittingly here a secret has beendivulged, which perhaps might more properly, in set way, have been disclosedbefore.

with many other particulars concerningahab, always had it remained a mystery to some, why it was, that for a certainperiod, both before and after the sailing of the pequod, he had hidden himself away with such grand-lama-like exclusiveness;and, for that one interval, sought speechless refuge, as it were, among themarble senate of the dead. captain peleg's bruited reason for thisthing appeared by no means adequate; though, indeed, as touching all ahab'sdeeper part, every revelation partook more of significant darkness than of explanatorylight. but, in the end, it all came out; this onematter did, at least.

that direful mishap was at the bottom ofhis temporary recluseness. and not only this, but to that ever-contracting, dropping circle ashore, who, for any reason, possessed the privilege ofa less banned approach to him; to that timid circle the above hinted casualty-- remaining, as it did, moodily unaccountedfor by ahab--invested itself with terrors, not entirely underived from the land ofspirits and of wails. so that, through their zeal for him, theyhad all conspired, so far as in them lay, to muffle up the knowledge of this thingfrom others; and hence it was, that not till a considerable interval had elapsed,did it transpire upon the pequod's decks.

but be all this as it may; let the unseen,ambiguous synod in the air, or the vindictive princes and potentates of fire,have to do or not with earthly ahab, yet, in this present matter of his leg, he took plain practical procedures;--he called thecarpenter. and when that functionary appeared beforehim, he bade him without delay set about making a new leg, and directed the mates tosee him supplied with all the studs and joists of jaw-ivory (sperm whale) which had thus far been accumulated on the voyage, inorder that a careful selection of the stoutest, clearest-grained stuff might besecured.

this done, the carpenter received orders tohave the leg completed that night; and to provide all the fittings for it,independent of those pertaining to the distrusted one in use. moreover, the ship's forge was ordered tobe hoisted out of its temporary idleness in the hold; and, to accelerate the affair,the blacksmith was commanded to proceed at once to the forging of whatever ironcontrivances might be needed. chapter 107.the carpenter. seat thyself sultanically among the moonsof saturn, and take high abstracted man alone; and he seems a wonder, a grandeur,and a woe.

but from the same point, take mankind inmass, and for the most part, they seem a mob of unnecessary duplicates, bothcontemporary and hereditary. but most humble though he was, and far fromfurnishing an example of the high, humane abstraction; the pequod's carpenter was noduplicate; hence, he now comes in person on this stage. like all sea-going ship carpenters, andmore especially those belonging to whaling vessels, he was, to a certain off-handed,practical extent, alike experienced in numerous trades and callings collateral to his own; the carpenter's pursuit being theancient and outbranching trunk of all those

numerous handicrafts which more or lesshave to do with wood as an auxiliary material. but, besides the application to him of thegeneric remark above, this carpenter of the pequod was singularly efficient in thosethousand nameless mechanical emergencies continually recurring in a large ship, upon a three or four years' voyage, inuncivilized and far-distant seas. for not to speak of his readiness inordinary duties:--repairing stove boats, sprung spars, reforming the shape ofclumsy-bladed oars, inserting bull's eyes in the deck, or new tree-nails in the side

planks, and other miscellaneous mattersmore directly pertaining to his special business; he was moreover unhesitatinglyexpert in all manner of conflicting aptitudes, both useful and capricious. the one grand stage where he enacted allhis various parts so manifold, was his vice-bench; a long rude ponderous tablefurnished with several vices, of different sizes, and both of iron and of wood. at all times except when whales werealongside, this bench was securely lashed athwartships against the rear of the try-works. a belaying pin is found too large to beeasily inserted into its hole: the

carpenter claps it into one of his ever-ready vices, and straightway files it smaller. a lost land-bird of strange plumage strayson board, and is made a captive: out of clean shaved rods of right-whale bone, andcross-beams of sperm whale ivory, the carpenter makes a pagoda-looking cage forit. an oarsman sprains his wrist: the carpenterconcocts a soothing lotion. stubb longed for vermillion stars to bepainted upon the blade of his every oar; screwing each oar in his big vice of wood,the carpenter symmetrically supplies the constellation.

a sailor takes a fancy to wear shark-boneear-rings: the carpenter drills his ears. another has the toothache: the carpenterout pincers, and clapping one hand upon his bench bids him be seated there; but thepoor fellow unmanageably winces under the unconcluded operation; whirling round the handle of his wooden vice, the carpentersigns him to clap his jaw in that, if he would have him draw the tooth. thus, this carpenter was prepared at allpoints, and alike indifferent and without respect in all. teeth he accounted bits of ivory; heads hedeemed but top-blocks; men themselves he

lightly held for capstans. but while now upon so wide a field thusvariously accomplished and with such liveliness of expertness in him, too; allthis would seem to argue some uncommon vivacity of intelligence. but not precisely so. for nothing was this man more remarkable,than for a certain impersonal stolidity as it were; impersonal, i say; for it soshaded off into the surrounding infinite of things, that it seemed one with the general stolidity discernible in the whole visibleworld; which while pauselessly active in

uncounted modes, still eternally holds itspeace, and ignores you, though you dig foundations for cathedrals. yet was this half-horrible stolidity inhim, involving, too, as it appeared, an all-ramifying heartlessness;--yet was itoddly dashed at times, with an old, crutch- like, antediluvian, wheezing humorousness, not unstreaked now and then with a certaingrizzled wittiness; such as might have served to pass the time during the midnightwatch on the bearded forecastle of noah's ark. was it that this old carpenter had been alife-long wanderer, whose much rolling, to

and fro, not only had gathered no moss; butwhat is more, had rubbed off whatever small outward clingings might have originallypertained to him? he was a stript abstract; an unfractionedintegral; uncompromised as a new-born babe; living without premeditated reference tothis world or the next. you might almost say, that this strangeuncompromisedness in him involved a sort of unintelligence; for in his numerous trades,he did not seem to work so much by reason or by instinct, or simply because he had been tutored to it, or by any intermixtureof all these, even or uneven; but merely by a kind of deaf and dumb, spontaneousliteral process.

he was a pure manipulator; his brain, if hehad ever had one, must have early oozed along into the muscles of his fingers. he was like one of those unreasoning butstill highly useful, multum in parvo, sheffield contrivances, assuming theexterior--though a little swelled--of a common pocket knife; but containing, not only blades of various sizes, but alsoscrew-drivers, cork-screws, tweezers, awls, pens, rulers, nail-filers, countersinkers. so, if his superiors wanted to use thecarpenter for a screw-driver, all they had to do was to open that part of him, and thescrew 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, hehad a subtle something that somehow anomalously did its duty. what that was, whether essence ofquicksilver, 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 timesoliloquizing; but only like an unreasoning wheel, which also hummingly soliloquizes; or rather, his body was a sentry-box andthis 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 busilyfiling 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 shinbones. let's try another. aye, now, this works better (sneezes).halloa, this bone dust is (sneezes)--why it's (sneezes)--yes it's (sneezes)--blessmy soul, it won't let me speak! this is what an old fellow gets now forworking in dead lumber. saw a live tree, and you don't get thisdust; amputate a live bone, and you don't

get it (sneezes). come, come, you old smut, there, bear ahand, and let's have that ferule and buckle-screw; i'll be ready for thempresently. lucky now (sneezes) there's no knee-jointto make; that might puzzle a little; but a mere shinbone--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, icould turn him out as neat a leg now as ever (sneezes) scraped to a lady in aparlor. those buckskin legs and calves of legs i'veseen in shop windows wouldn't compare at

all. they soak water, they do; and of course getrheumatic, and have to be doctored (sneezes) with washes and lotions, justlike live legs. there; before i saw it off, now, i mustcall his old mogulship, and see whether the length will be all right; too short, ifanything, i guess. ha! that's the heel; we are in luck; herehe comes, or it's somebody else, that's certain.ahab (advancing) (during the ensuing scene, the carpentercontinues sneezing at times) well, manmaker!just in time, sir.

if the captain pleases, i will now mark thelength. 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 feelsomething in this slippery world that can hold, man.

what's prometheus about there?--theblacksmith, i mean--what's he about? he must be forging the buckle-screw, sir,now. right. it's a partnership; he supplies the musclepart. 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, thatthat 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 thatbuckle, tell him to forge a pair of steel shoulder-blades; there's a pedlar aboardwith a crushing pack. sir? hold; while prometheus is about it, i'llorder 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, tostay in one place; then, arms three feet through the wrist; no heart at all, brass forehead, and about a quarter of an acre offine 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 ablind 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 tocarpenter. carpenter? why that's--but no;--a verytidy, and, i may say, an extremely gentlemanlike sort of business thou art inhere, 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 artdead, never bury thyself under living people's noses.sir?--oh! ah!--i guess so;--yes--dear! look ye, carpenter, i dare say thou callestthyself a right good workmanlike workman, eh? well, then, will it speak thoroughly wellfor thy work, if, when i come to mount this leg thou makest, i shall nevertheless feelanother leg in the same identical place

with it; that is, carpenter, my old lostleg; 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 thatscore, 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 onlyone 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 preciselywhere thou now standest; aye, and standing there in thy spite? in thy most solitary hours, then, dost thounot fear eavesdroppers? hold, don't speak! and if i still feel the smart of my crushedleg, though it be now so long dissolved;

then, why mayst not thou, carpenter, feelthe fiery pains of hell for ever, and without a body? hah!good lord! truly, sir, if it comes to that, i mustcalculate over again; i think i didn't carry a small figure, sir. look ye, pudding-heads should never grantpremises.--how long before the 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 abone to stand on! cursed be that mortal inter-indebtednesswhich will not do away with ledgers. i would be free as air; and i'm down in thewhole world's books. i am so rich, i could have given bid forbid with the wealthiest praetorians at the auction of the roman empire (which was theworld'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 stubbalways says he's queer; says nothing but that one sufficient little word queer; he'squeer, 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 hisbedfellow! 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 inthree places, and all three places standing

in one hell--how was that?oh! i don't wonder he looked so scornful at me! i'm a sort of strange-thoughted sometimes,they say; but that's only haphazard-like. then, a short, little old body like me,should never undertake to wade out into deep waters with tall, heron-builtcaptains; the water chucks you under the chin pretty quick, and there's a great cryfor life-boats. and here's the heron's leg! long and slim,sure enough! now, for most folks one pair of legs lastsa lifetime, and that must be because they use them mercifully, as a tender-heartedold lady uses her roly-poly old coach-

horses. but ahab; oh he's a hard driver.look, driven one leg to death, and spavined the other for life, and now wears out bonelegs by the cord. halloa, there, you smut! bear a hand therewith those screws, and let's finish it before the resurrection fellow comes a-calling with his horn for all legs, true or false, as brewery-men go round collectingold beer barrels, to fill 'em up again. what a leg this is! it looks like a real live leg, filed downto nothing but the core; he'll be standing on this to-morrow; he'll be takingaltitudes on it.

halloa! i almost forgot the little oval slate,smoothed ivory, where he figures up the latitude.so, so; chisel, file, and sand-paper, now! > -chapter 109.ahab and starbuck in the cabin. according to usage they were pumping theship next morning; and lo! no inconsiderable oil came up with the water;the casks below must have sprung a bad leak. much concern was shown; and starbuck wentdown into the cabin to report this

unfavourable affair.* *in sperm-whalemen with any considerablequantity of oil on board, it is a regular semiweekly duty to conduct a hose into thehold, and drench the casks with sea-water; which afterwards, at varying intervals, isremoved by the ship's pumps. hereby the casks are sought to be keptdamply tight; while by the changed character of the withdrawn water, themariners readily detect any serious leakage in the precious cargo. now, from the south and west the pequod wasdrawing nigh to formosa and the bashee isles, between which lies one of thetropical outlets from the china waters into

the pacific. and so starbuck found ahab with a generalchart of the oriental archipelagoes spread before him; and another separate onerepresenting the long eastern coasts of the japanese islands--niphon, matsmai, andsikoke. with his snow-white new ivory leg bracedagainst the screwed leg of his table, and with a long pruning-hook of a jack-knife inhis hand, the wondrous old man, with his back to the gangway door, was wrinkling hisbrow, and tracing his old courses again. "who's there?" hearing the footstep at thedoor, but not turning round to it. "on deck!

begone!""captain ahab mistakes; it is i. the oil in the hold is leaking, sir.we must up burtons and break out." "up burtons and break out? now that we are nearing japan; heave-tohere for a week to tinker a parcel of old hoops?""either do that, sir, or waste in one day more oil than we may make good in a year. what we come twenty thousand miles to getis worth saving, sir." "so it is, so it is; if we get it.""i was speaking of the oil in the hold, sir."

"and i was not speaking or thinking of thatat all. begone!let it leak! i'm all aleak myself. aye! leaks in leaks! not only full of leakycasks, but those leaky casks are in a leaky ship; and that's a far worse plight thanthe pequod's, man. yet i don't stop to plug my leak; for whocan find it in the deep-loaded hull; or how hope to plug it, even if found, in thislife's howling gale? starbuck! i'll not have the burtons hoisted.""what will the owners say, sir?"

"let the owners stand on nantucket beachand outyell the typhoons. what cares ahab? owners, owners?thou art always prating to me, starbuck, about those miserly owners, as if theowners were my conscience. but look ye, the only real owner ofanything is its commander; and hark ye, my conscience is in this ship's keel.--ondeck!" "captain ahab," said the reddening mate,moving further into the cabin, with a daring so strangely respectful and cautiousthat it almost seemed not only every way seeking to avoid the slightest outward

manifestation of itself, but within alsoseemed more than half distrustful of itself; "a better man than i might wellpass over in thee what he would quickly enough resent in a younger man; aye, and ina happier, captain ahab." "devils!dost thou then so much as dare to critically think of me?--on deck!" "nay, sir, not yet; i do entreat.and i do dare, sir--to be forbearing! shall we not understand each other betterthan hitherto, captain ahab?" ahab seized a loaded musket from the rack(forming part of most south-sea-men's cabin furniture), and pointing it towardsstarbuck, exclaimed: "there is one god that

is lord over the earth, and one captainthat is lord over the pequod.--on deck!" for an instant in the flashing eyes of themate, and his fiery cheeks, you would have almost thought that he had really receivedthe blaze of the levelled tube. but, mastering his emotion, he half calmlyrose, and as he quitted the cabin, paused for an instant and said: "thou hastoutraged, not insulted me, sir; but for that i ask thee not to beware of starbuck; thou wouldst but laugh; but let ahab bewareof ahab; beware of thyself, old man." "he waxes brave, but nevertheless obeys;most careful bravery that!" murmured ahab, as starbuck disappeared.

"what's that he said--ahab beware of ahab--there's something there!" then unconsciously using the musket for astaff, with an iron brow he paced to and fro in the little cabin; but presently thethick plaits of his forehead relaxed, and returning the gun to the rack, he went tothe deck. "thou art but too good a fellow, starbuck,"he said lowly to the mate; then raising his voice to the crew: "furl the t'gallant-sails, and close-reef the top-sails, fore and aft; back the main-yard; up burton, andbreak out in the main-hold." it were perhaps vain to surmise exactly whyit was, that as respecting starbuck, ahab thus acted.

it may have been a flash of honesty in him;or mere prudential policy which, under the circumstance, imperiously forbade theslightest symptom of open disaffection, however transient, in the important chiefofficer of his ship. however it was, his orders were executed;and the burtons were hoisted. chapter 110.queequeg in his coffin. upon searching, it was found that the caskslast struck into the hold were perfectly sound, and that the leak must be furtheroff. so, it being calm weather, they broke outdeeper and deeper, disturbing the slumbers of the huge ground-tier butts; and fromthat black midnight sending those gigantic

moles into the daylight above. so deep did they go; and so ancient, andcorroded, and weedy the aspect of the lowermost puncheons, that you almost lookednext for some mouldy corner-stone cask containing coins of captain noah, with copies of the posted placards, vainlywarning the infatuated old world from the flood. tierce after tierce, too, of water, andbread, and beef, and shooks of staves, and iron bundles of hoops, were hoisted out,till at last the piled decks were hard to get about; and the hollow hull echoed under

foot, as if you were treading over emptycatacombs, and reeled and rolled in the sea like an air-freighted demijohn.top-heavy was the ship as a dinnerless student with all aristotle in his head. well was it that the typhoons did not visitthem then. now, at this time it was that my poor pagancompanion, and fast bosom-friend, queequeg, was seized with a fever, which brought himnigh to his endless end. be it said, that in this vocation ofwhaling, sinecures are unknown; dignity and danger go hand in hand; till you get to becaptain, the higher you rise the harder you toil.

so with poor queequeg, who, as harpooneer,must not only face all the rage of the living whale, but--as we have elsewhereseen--mount his dead back in a rolling sea; and finally descend into the gloom of the hold, and bitterly sweating all day in thatsubterraneous confinement, resolutely manhandle the clumsiest casks and see totheir stowage. to be short, among whalemen, theharpooneers are the holders, so called. poor queequeg! when the ship was about halfdisembowelled, you should have stooped over the hatchway, and peered down upon himthere; where, stripped to his woollen drawers, the tattooed savage was crawling

about amid that dampness and slime, like agreen spotted lizard at the bottom of a well. and a well, or an ice-house, it somehowproved to him, poor pagan; where, strange to say, for all the heat of his sweatings,he caught a terrible chill which lapsed into a fever; and at last, after some days' suffering, laid him in his hammock, closeto the very sill of the door of death. how he wasted and wasted away in those fewlong-lingering days, till there seemed but little left of him but his frame andtattooing. but as all else in him thinned, and hischeek-bones grew sharper, his eyes,

nevertheless, seemed growing fuller andfuller; they became of a strange softness of lustre; and mildly but deeply looked out at you there from his sickness, a wondroustestimony to that immortal health in him which could not die, or be weakened. and like circles on the water, which, asthey grow fainter, expand; so his eyes seemed rounding and rounding, like therings of eternity. an awe that cannot be named would stealover you as you sat by the side of this waning savage, and saw as strange things inhis face, as any beheld who were bystanders when zoroaster died.

for whatever is truly wondrous and fearfulin man, never yet was put into words or books. and the drawing near of death, which alikelevels all, alike impresses all with a last revelation, which only an author from thedead could adequately tell. so that--let us say it again--no dyingchaldee or greek had higher and holier thoughts than those, whose mysteriousshades you saw creeping over the face of poor queequeg, as he quietly lay in his swaying hammock, and the rolling sea seemedgently rocking him to his final rest, and the ocean's invisible flood-tide lifted himhigher and higher towards his destined

heaven. not a man of the crew but gave him up; and,as for queequeg himself, what he thought of his case was forcibly shown by a curiousfavour he asked. he called one to him in the grey morningwatch, when the day was just breaking, and taking his hand, said that while innantucket he had chanced to see certain little canoes of dark wood, like the rich war-wood of his native isle; and uponinquiry, he had learned that all whalemen who died in nantucket, were laid in thosesame dark canoes, and that the fancy of being so laid had much pleased him; for it

was not unlike the custom of his own race,who, after embalming a dead warrior, stretched him out in his canoe, and so lefthim to be floated away to the starry archipelagoes; for not only do they believe that the stars are isles, but that farbeyond all visible horizons, their own mild, uncontinented seas, interflow withthe blue heavens; and so form the white breakers of the milky way. he added, that he shuddered at the thoughtof being buried in his hammock, according to the usual sea-custom, tossed likesomething vile to the death-devouring sharks.

no: he desired a canoe like those ofnantucket, all the more congenial to him, being a whaleman, that like a whale-boatthese coffin-canoes were without a keel; though that involved but uncertain steering, and much lee-way adown the dimages. now, when this strange circumstance wasmade known aft, the carpenter was at once commanded to do queequeg's bidding,whatever it might include. there was some heathenish, coffin-colouredold lumber aboard, which, upon a long previous voyage, had been cut from theaboriginal groves of the lackaday islands, and from these dark planks the coffin wasrecommended to be made.

no sooner was the carpenter apprised of theorder, than taking his rule, he forthwith with all the indifferent promptitude of hischaracter, proceeded into the forecastle and took queequeg's measure with great accuracy, regularly chalking queequeg'sperson as he shifted the rule. "ah! poor fellow! he'll have to die now,"ejaculated the long island sailor. going to his vice-bench, the carpenter forconvenience sake and general reference, now transferringly measured on it the exactlength the coffin was to be, and then made the transfer permanent by cutting twonotches at its extremities. this done, he marshalled the planks and histools, and to work.

when the last nail was driven, and the lidduly planed and fitted, he lightly shouldered the coffin and went forward withit, inquiring whether they were ready for it yet in that direction. overhearing the indignant but half-humorouscries with which the people on deck began to drive the coffin away, queequeg, toevery one's consternation, commanded that the thing should be instantly brought to him, nor was there any denying him; seeingthat, of all mortals, some dying men are the most tyrannical; and certainly, sincethey will shortly trouble us so little for evermore, the poor fellows ought to beindulged.

leaning over in his hammock, queequeg longregarded the coffin with an attentive eye. he then called for his harpoon, had thewooden stock drawn from it, and then had the iron part placed in the coffin alongwith one of the paddles of his boat. all by his own request, also, biscuits werethen ranged round the sides within: a flask of fresh water was placed at the head, anda small bag of woody earth scraped up in the hold at the foot; and a piece of sail- cloth being rolled up for a pillow,queequeg now entreated to be lifted into his final bed, that he might make trial ofits comforts, if any it had. he lay without moving a few minutes, thentold one to go to his bag and bring out his

little god, yojo. then crossing his arms on his breast withyojo between, he called for the coffin lid (hatch he called it) to be placed over him. the head part turned over with a leatherhinge, and there lay queequeg in his coffin with little but his composed countenance inview. "rarmai" (it will do; it is easy), hemurmured at last, and signed to be replaced in his hammock. but ere this was done, pip, who had beenslily hovering near by all this while, drew nigh to him where he lay, and with softsobbings, took him by the hand; in the

other, holding his tambourine. "poor rover! will ye never have done withall this weary roving? where go ye now? but if the currents carry ye to those sweetantilles where the beaches are only beat with water-lilies, will ye do one littleerrand for me? seek out one pip, who's now been missinglong: i think he's in those far antilles. if ye find him, then comfort him; for hemust be very sad; for look! he's left his tambourine behind;--i found it. rig-a-dig, dig, dig!now, queequeg, die; and i'll beat ye your dying march."

"i have heard," murmured starbuck, gazingdown the scuttle, "that in violent fevers, men, all ignorance, have talked in ancienttongues; and that when the mystery is probed, it turns out always that in their wholly forgotten childhood those ancienttongues had been really spoken in their hearing by some lofty scholars. so, to my fond faith, poor pip, in thisstrange sweetness of his lunacy, brings heavenly vouchers of all our heavenlyhomes. where learned he that, but there?--hark! hespeaks again: but more wildly now." "form two and two!let's make a general of him!

ho, where's his harpoon? lay it across here.--rig-a-dig, dig, dig!huzza! oh for a game cock now to sit upon his headand crow! queequeg dies game!--mind ye that; queequegdies game!--take ye good heed of that; queequeg dies game! i say; game, game, game! but base littlepip, he died a coward; died all a'shiver;-- out upon pip! hark ye; if ye find pip, tell all theantilles he's a runaway; a coward, a coward, a coward!tell them he jumped from a whale-boat!

i'd never beat my tambourine over base pip,and hail him general, if he were once more dying here.no, no! shame upon all cowards--shame upon them! let 'em go drown like pip, that jumped froma whale-boat. shame! shame!"during all this, queequeg lay with closed eyes, as if in a dream. pip was led away, and the sick man wasreplaced in his hammock. but now that he had apparently made everypreparation for death; now that his coffin was proved a good fit, queequeg suddenlyrallied; soon there seemed no need of the

carpenter's box: and thereupon, when some expressed their delighted surprise, he, insubstance, said, that the cause of his sudden convalescence was this;--at acritical moment, he had just recalled a little duty ashore, which he was leaving undone; and therefore had changed his mindabout dying: he could not die yet, he averred. they asked him, then, whether to live ordie was a matter of his own sovereign will and pleasure.he answered, certainly. in a word, it was queequeg's conceit, thatif a man made up his mind to live, mere

sickness could not kill him: nothing but awhale, or a gale, or some violent, ungovernable, unintelligent destroyer ofthat sort. now, there is this noteworthy differencebetween savage and civilized; that while a sick, civilized man may be six monthsconvalescing, generally speaking, a sick savage is almost half-well again in a day. so, in good time my queequeg gainedstrength; and at length after sitting on the windlass for a few indolent days (buteating with a vigorous appetite) he suddenly leaped to his feet, threw out his arms and legs, gave himself a goodstretching, yawned a little bit, and then

springing into the head of his hoistedboat, and poising a harpoon, pronounced himself fit for a fight. with a wild whimsiness, he now used hiscoffin for a sea-chest; and emptying into it his canvas bag of clothes, set them inorder there. many spare hours he spent, in carving thelid with all manner of grotesque figures and drawings; and it seemed that hereby hewas striving, in his rude way, to copy parts of the twisted tattooing on his body. and this tattooing had been the work of adeparted prophet and seer of his island, who, by those hieroglyphic marks, hadwritten out on his body a complete theory

of the heavens and the earth, and a mystical treatise on the art of attainingtruth; so that queequeg in his own proper person was a riddle to unfold; a wondrouswork in one volume; but whose mysteries not even himself could read, though his own live heart beat against them; and thesemysteries were therefore destined in the end to moulder away with the livingparchment whereon they were inscribed, and so be unsolved to the last. and this thought it must have been whichsuggested to ahab that wild exclamation of his, when one morning turning away fromsurveying poor queequeg--"oh, devilish

tantalization of the gods!" chapter 111.the pacific. when gliding by the bashee isles we emergedat last upon the great south sea; were it not for other things, i could have greetedmy dear pacific with uncounted thanks, for now the long supplication of my youth was answered; that serene ocean rolledeastwards from me a thousand leagues of blue. there is, one knows not what sweet mysteryabout this sea, whose gently awful stirrings seem to speak of some hidden soulbeneath; like those fabled undulations of

the ephesian sod over the buried evangelistst. john. and meet it is, that over these sea-pastures, wide-rolling watery prairies and potters' fields of all four continents, thewaves should rise and fall, and ebb and flow unceasingly; for here, millions of mixed shades and shadows, drowned dreams,somnambulisms, reveries; all that we call lives and souls, lie dreaming, dreaming,still; tossing like slumberers in their beds; the ever-rolling waves but made so bytheir restlessness. to any meditative magian rover, this serenepacific, once beheld, must ever after be the sea of his adoption.

it rolls the midmost waters of the world,the indian ocean and atlantic being but its arms. the same waves wash the moles of the new-built californian towns, but yesterday planted by the recentest race of men, andlave the faded but still gorgeous skirts of asiatic lands, older than abraham; while all between float milky-ways of coralisles, and low-lying, endless, unknown archipelagoes, and impenetrable japans. thus this mysterious, divine pacific zonesthe world's whole bulk about; makes all coasts one bay to it; seems the tide-beating heart of earth.

lifted by those eternal swells, you needsmust own the seductive god, bowing your head to pan. but few thoughts of pan stirred ahab'sbrain, as standing like an iron statue at his accustomed place beside the mizenrigging, with one nostril he unthinkingly snuffed the sugary musk from the bashee isles (in whose sweet woods mild loversmust be walking), and with the other consciously inhaled the salt breath of thenew found sea; that sea in which the hated white whale must even then be swimming. launched at length upon these almost finalwaters, and gliding towards the japanese

cruising-ground, the old man's purposeintensified itself. his firm lips met like the lips of a vice;the delta of his forehead's veins swelled like overladen brooks; in his very sleep,his ringing cry ran through the vaulted hull, "stern all! the white whale spoutsthick blood!" chapter 112.the blacksmith. availing himself of the mild, summer-coolweather that now reigned in these latitudes, and in preparation for thepeculiarly active pursuits shortly to be anticipated, perth, the begrimed, blistered old blacksmith, had not removed hisportable forge to the hold again, after

concluding his contributory work for ahab'sleg, but still retained it on deck, fast lashed to ringbolts by the foremast; being now almost incessantly invoked by theheadsmen, and harpooneers, and bowsmen to do some little job for them; altering, orrepairing, or new shaping their various weapons and boat furniture. often he would be surrounded by an eagercircle, all waiting to be served; holding boat-spades, pike-heads, harpoons, andlances, and jealously watching his every sooty movement, as he toiled. nevertheless, this old man's was a patienthammer wielded by a patient arm.

no murmur, no impatience, no petulance didcome from him. silent, slow, and solemn; bowing over stillfurther his chronically broken back, he toiled away, as if toil were life itself,and the heavy beating of his hammer the heavy beating of his heart. and so it was.--most miserable!a peculiar walk in this old man, a certain slight but painful appearing yawing in hisgait, had at an early period of the voyage excited the curiosity of the mariners. and to the importunity of their persistedquestionings he had finally given in; and so it came to pass that every one now knewthe shameful story of his wretched fate.

belated, and not innocently, one bitterwinter's midnight, on the road running between two country towns, the blacksmithhalf-stupidly felt the deadly numbness stealing over him, and sought refuge in aleaning, dilapidated barn. the issue was, the loss of the extremitiesof both feet. out of this revelation, part by part, atlast came out the four acts of the gladness, and the one long, and as yetuncatastrophied fifth act of the grief of his life's drama. he was an old man, who, at the age ofnearly sixty, had postponedly encountered that thing in sorrow's technicals calledruin.

he had been an artisan of famed excellence,and with plenty to do; owned a house and garden; embraced a youthful, daughter-like,loving wife, and three blithe, ruddy children; every sunday went to a cheerful-looking church, planted in a grove. but one night, under cover of darkness, andfurther concealed in a most cunning disguisement, a desperate burglar slid intohis happy home, and robbed them all of everything. and darker yet to tell, the blacksmithhimself did ignorantly conduct this burglar into his family's heart.it was the bottle conjuror! upon the opening of that fatal cork, forthflew the fiend, and shrivelled up his home.

now, for prudent, most wise, and economicreasons, the blacksmith's shop was in the basement of his dwelling, but with aseparate entrance to it; so that always had the young and loving healthy wife listened with no unhappy nervousness, but withvigorous pleasure, to the stout ringing of her young-armed old husband's hammer; whosereverberations, muffled by passing through the floors and walls, came up to her, not unsweetly, in her nursery; and so, to stoutlabor's iron lullaby, the blacksmith's infants were rocked to slumber.oh, woe on woe! oh, death, why canst thou not sometimes betimely?

hadst thou taken this old blacksmith tothyself ere his full ruin came upon him, then had the young widow had a deliciousgrief, and her orphans a truly venerable, legendary sire to dream of in their after years; and all of them a care-killingcompetency. but death plucked down some virtuous elderbrother, on whose whistling daily toil solely hung the responsibilities of someother family, and left the worse than useless old man standing, till the hideous rot of life should make him easier toharvest. why tell the whole?

the blows of the basement hammer every daygrew more and more between; and each blow every day grew fainter than the last; thewife sat frozen at the window, with tearless eyes, glitteringly gazing into the weeping faces of her children; the bellowsfell; the forge choked up with cinders; the house was sold; the mother dived down intothe long church-yard grass; her children twice followed her thither; and the houseless, familyless old man staggered offa vagabond in crape; his every woe unreverenced; his grey head a scorn toflaxen curls! death seems the only desirable sequel for acareer like this; but death is only a

launching into the region of the strangeuntried; it is but the first salutation to the possibilities of the immense remote, the wild, the watery, the unshored;therefore, to the death-longing eyes of such men, who still have left in them someinterior compunctions against suicide, does the all-contributed and all-receptive ocean alluringly spread forth his whole plain ofunimaginable, taking terrors, and wonderful, new-life adventures; and fromthe hearts of infinite pacifics, the thousand mermaids sing to them--"come hither, broken-hearted; here is anotherlife without the guilt of intermediate

death; here are wonders supernatural,without dying for them. come hither! bury thyself in a life which,to your now equally abhorred and abhorring, landed world, is more oblivious than death. come hither! put up thy gravestone, too,within the churchyard, and come hither, till we marry thee!" hearkening to these voices, east and west,by early sunrise, and by fall of eve, the blacksmith's soul responded, aye, i come!and so perth went a-whaling. chapter 113.the forge. with matted beard, and swathed in abristling shark-skin apron, about mid-day,

perth was standing between his forge andanvil, the latter placed upon an iron-wood log, with one hand holding a pike-head in the coals, and with the other at hisforge's lungs, when captain ahab came along, carrying in his hand a small rusty-looking leathern bag. while yet a little distance from the forge,moody ahab paused; till at last, perth, withdrawing his iron from the fire, beganhammering it upon the anvil--the red mass sending off the sparks in thick hoveringflights, some of which flew close to ahab. "are these thy mother carey's chickens,perth? they are always flying in thy wake; birds of good omen, too, but not to all;--look here, they burn; but thou--thou liv'st

among them without a scorch." "because i am scorched all over, captainahab," answered perth, resting for a moment on his hammer; "i am past scorching; noteasily can'st thou scorch a scar." "well, well; no more. thy shrunk voice sounds too calmly, sanelywoeful to me. in no paradise myself, i am impatient ofall misery in others that is not mad. thou should'st go mad, blacksmith; say, whydost thou not go mad? how can'st thou endure without being mad? do the heavens yet hate thee, that thoucan'st not go mad?--what wert thou making

there?""welding an old pike-head, sir; there were seams and dents in it." "and can'st thou make it all smooth again,blacksmith, after such hard usage as it had?""i think so, sir." "and i suppose thou can'st smoothe almostany seams and dents; never mind how hard the metal, blacksmith?""aye, sir, i think i can; all seams and dents but one." "look ye here, then," cried ahab,passionately advancing, and leaning with both hands on perth's shoulders; "look yehere--here--can ye smoothe out a seam like

this, blacksmith," sweeping one hand across his ribbed brow; "if thou could'st,blacksmith, glad enough would i lay my head upon thy anvil, and feel thy heaviesthammer between my eyes. answer! can'st thou smoothe this seam?""oh! that is the one, sir! said i not all seams and dents but one?" "aye, blacksmith, it is the one; aye, man,it is unsmoothable; for though thou only see'st it here in my flesh, it has workeddown into the bone of my skull--that is all wrinkles!

but, away with child's play; no more gaffsand pikes to-day. look ye here!" jingling the leathern bag,as if it were full of gold coins. "i, too, want a harpoon made; one that athousand yoke of fiends could not part, perth; something that will stick in a whalelike his own fin-bone. there's the stuff," flinging the pouch uponthe anvil. "look ye, blacksmith, these are thegathered nail-stubbs of the steel shoes of racing horses." "horse-shoe stubbs, sir?why, captain ahab, thou hast here, then, the best and stubbornest stuff weblacksmiths ever work."

"i know it, old man; these stubbs will weldtogether like glue from the melted bones of murderers.quick! forge me the harpoon. and forge me first, twelve rods for itsshank; then wind, and twist, and hammer these twelve together like the yarns andstrands of a tow-line. quick! i'll blow the fire."when at last the twelve rods were made, ahab tried them, one by one, by spirallingthem, with his own hand, round a long, heavy iron bolt. "a flaw!" rejecting the last one."work that over again, perth."

this done, perth was about to begin weldingthe twelve into one, when ahab stayed his hand, and said he would weld his own iron. as, then, with regular, gasping hems, hehammered on the anvil, perth passing to him the glowing rods, one after the other, andthe hard pressed forge shooting up its intense straight flame, the parsee passed silently, and bowing over his head towardsthe fire, seemed invoking some curse or some blessing on the toil.but, as ahab looked up, he slid aside. "what's that bunch of lucifers dodgingabout there for?" muttered stubb, looking on from the forecastle.

"that parsee smells fire like a fusee; andsmells of it himself, like a hot musket's powder-pan." at last the shank, in one complete rod,received its final heat; and as perth, to temper it, plunged it all hissing into thecask of water near by, the scalding steam shot up into ahab's bent face. "would'st thou brand me, perth?" wincingfor a moment with the pain; "have i been but forging my own branding-iron, then?""pray god, not that; yet i fear something, captain ahab. is not this harpoon for the white whale?""for the white fiend!

but now for the barbs; thou must make themthyself, man. here are my razors--the best of steel;here, and make the barbs sharp as the needle-sleet of the icy sea." for a moment, the old blacksmith eyed therazors as though he would fain not use them. "take them, man, i have no need for them;for i now neither shave, sup, nor pray till--but here--to work!" fashioned at last into an arrowy shape, andwelded by perth to the shank, the steel soon pointed the end of the iron; and asthe blacksmith was about giving the barbs

their final heat, prior to tempering them, he cried to ahab to place the water-casknear. "no, no--no water for that; i want it ofthe true death-temper. ahoy, there! tashtego, queequeg, daggoo!what say ye, pagans! will ye give me as much blood as will coverthis barb?" holding it high up. a cluster of dark nods replied, yes. three punctures were made in the heathenflesh, and the white whale's barbs were then tempered.

"ego non baptizo te in nomine patris, sedin nomine diaboli!" deliriously howled ahab, as the malignant iron scorchinglydevoured the baptismal blood. now, mustering the spare poles from below,and selecting one of hickory, with the bark still investing it, ahab fitted the end tothe socket of the iron. a coil of new tow-line was then unwound,and some fathoms of it taken to the windlass, and stretched to a great tension. pressing his foot upon it, till the ropehummed like a harp-string, then eagerly bending over it, and seeing no strandings,ahab exclaimed, "good! and now for the seizings."

at one extremity the rope was unstranded,and the separate spread yarns were all braided and woven round the socket of theharpoon; the pole was then driven hard up into the socket; from the lower end the rope was traced half-way along the pole'slength, and firmly secured so, with intertwistings of twine. this done, pole, iron, and rope--like thethree fates--remained inseparable, and ahab moodily stalked away with the weapon; thesound of his ivory leg, and the sound of the hickory pole, both hollowly ringingalong every plank. but ere he entered his cabin, light,unnatural, half-bantering, yet most piteous

sound was heard. oh, pip! thy wretched laugh, thy idle butunresting eye; all thy strange mummeries not unmeaningly blended with the blacktragedy of the melancholy ship, and mocked it! -chapter 114.the gilder. penetrating further and further into theheart of the japanese cruising ground, the pequod was soon all astir in the fishery. often, in mild, pleasant weather, fortwelve, fifteen, eighteen, and twenty hours on the stretch, they were engaged in theboats, steadily pulling, or sailing, or

paddling after the whales, or for an interlude of sixty or seventy minutescalmly awaiting their uprising; though with but small success for their pains. at such times, under an abated sun; afloatall day upon smooth, slow heaving swells; seated in his boat, light as a birch canoe;and so sociably mixing with the soft waves themselves, that like hearth-stone cats they purr against the gunwale; these arethe times of dreamy quietude, when beholding the tranquil beauty andbrilliancy of the ocean's skin, one forgets the tiger heart that pants beneath it; and

would not willingly remember, that thisvelvet paw but conceals a remorseless fang. these are the times, when in his whale-boatthe rover softly feels a certain filial, confident, land-like feeling towards thesea; that he regards it as so much flowery earth; and the distant ship revealing only the tops of her masts, seems strugglingforward, not through high rolling waves, but through the tall grass of a rollingprairie: as when the western emigrants' horses only show their erected ears, while their hidden bodies widely wade through theamazing verdure. the long-drawn virgin vales; the mild bluehill-sides; as over these there steals the

hush, the hum; you almost swear that play-wearied children lie sleeping in these solitudes, in some glad may-time, when theflowers of the woods are plucked. and all this mixes with your most mysticmood; so that fact and fancy, half-way meeting, interpenetrate, and form oneseamless whole. nor did such soothing scenes, howevertemporary, fail of at least as temporary an effect on ahab. but if these secret golden keys did seem toopen in him his own secret golden treasuries, yet did his breath upon themprove but tarnishing. oh, grassy glades! oh, ever vernal endlesslandscapes in the soul; in ye,--though long

parched by the dead drought of the earthylife,--in ye, men yet may roll, like young horses in new morning clover; and for some few fleeting moments, feel the cool dew ofthe life immortal on them. would to god these blessed calms wouldlast. but the mingled, mingling threads of lifeare woven by warp and woof: calms crossed by storms, a storm for every calm. there is no steady unretracing progress inthis life; we do not advance through fixed gradations, and at the last one pause:--through infancy's unconscious spell, boyhood's thoughtless faith, adolescence'

doubt (the common doom), then scepticism,then disbelief, resting at last in manhood's pondering repose of if. but once gone through, we trace the roundagain; and are infants, boys, and men, and ifs eternally.where lies the final harbor, whence we unmoor no more? in what rapt ether sails the world, ofwhich the weariest will never weary? where is the foundling's father hidden? our souls are like those orphans whoseunwedded mothers die in bearing them: the secret of our paternity lies in theirgrave, and we must there to learn it.

and that same day, too, gazing far downfrom his boat's side into that same golden sea, starbuck lowly murmured:-- "loveliness unfathomable, as ever lover sawin his young bride's eye!--tell me not of thy teeth-tiered sharks, and thy kidnappingcannibal ways. let faith oust fact; let fancy oust memory;i look deep down and do believe." and stubb, fish-like, with sparklingscales, leaped up in that same golden light:-- "i am stubb, and stubb has his history; buthere stubb takes oaths that he has always been jolly!"

chapter 115.the pequod meets the bachelor. and jolly enough were the sights and thesounds that came bearing down before the wind, some few weeks after ahab's harpoonhad been welded. it was a nantucket ship, the bachelor,which had just wedged in her last cask of oil, and bolted down her bursting hatches;and now, in glad holiday apparel, was joyously, though somewhat vain-gloriously, sailing round among the widely-separatedships on the ground, previous to pointing her prow for home. the three men at her mast-head wore longstreamers of narrow red bunting at their

hats; from the stern, a whale-boat wassuspended, bottom down; and hanging captive from the bowsprit was seen the long lowerjaw of the last whale they had slain. signals, ensigns, and jacks of all colourswere flying from her rigging, on every side. sideways lashed in each of her threebasketed tops were two barrels of sperm; above which, in her top-mast cross-trees,you saw slender breakers of the same precious fluid; and nailed to her maintruck was a brazen lamp. as was afterwards learned, the bachelor hadmet with the most surprising success; all the more wonderful, for that while cruisingin the same seas numerous other vessels had

gone entire months without securing asingle fish. not only had barrels of beef and bread beengiven away to make room for the far more valuable sperm, but additional supplementalcasks had been bartered for, from the ships she had met; and these were stowed along the deck, and in the captain's andofficers' state-rooms. even the cabin table itself had beenknocked into kindling-wood; and the cabin mess dined off the broad head of an oil-butt, lashed down to the floor for a centrepiece. in the forecastle, the sailors had actuallycaulked and pitched their chests, and

filled them; it was humorously added, thatthe cook had clapped a head on his largest boiler, and filled it; that the steward had plugged his spare coffee-pot and filled it;that the harpooneers had headed the sockets of their irons and filled them; that indeedeverything was filled with sperm, except the captain's pantaloons pockets, and those he reserved to thrust his hands into, inself-complacent testimony of his entire satisfaction. as this glad ship of good luck bore downupon the moody pequod, the barbarian sound of enormous drums came from her forecastle;and drawing still nearer, a crowd of her

men were seen standing round her huge try- pots, which, covered with the parchment-like poke or stomach skin of the black fish, gave forth a loud roar to everystroke of the clenched hands of the crew. on the quarter-deck, the mates andharpooneers were dancing with the olive- hued girls who had eloped with them fromthe polynesian isles; while suspended in an ornamented boat, firmly secured aloft between the foremast and mainmast, threelong island negroes, with glittering fiddle-bows of whale ivory, were presidingover the hilarious jig. meanwhile, others of the ship's companywere tumultuously busy at the masonry of

the try-works, from which the huge pots hadbeen removed. you would have almost thought they werepulling down the cursed bastille, such wild cries they raised, as the now useless brickand mortar were being hurled into the sea. lord and master over all this scene, thecaptain stood erect on the ship's elevated quarter-deck, so that the whole rejoicingdrama was full before him, and seemed merely contrived for his own individualdiversion. and ahab, he too was standing on hisquarter-deck, shaggy and black, with a stubborn gloom; and as the two shipscrossed each other's wakes--one all jubilations for things passed, the other

all forebodings as to things to come--theirtwo captains in themselves impersonated the whole striking contrast of the scene. "come aboard, come aboard!" cried the gaybachelor's commander, lifting a glass and a bottle in the air."hast seen the white whale?" gritted ahab in reply. "no; only heard of him; but don't believein him at all," said the other good- humoredly."come aboard!" "thou art too damned jolly. sail on.hast lost any men?"

"not enough to speak of--two islanders,that's all;--but come aboard, old hearty, come along. i'll soon take that black from your brow.come along, will ye (merry's the play); a full ship and homeward-bound." "how wondrous familiar is a fool!" mutteredahab; then aloud, "thou art a full ship and homeward bound, thou sayst; well, then,call me an empty ship, and outward-bound. so go thy ways, and i will mine. forward there!set all sail, and keep her to the wind!" and thus, while the one ship went cheerilybefore the breeze, the other stubbornly

fought against it; and so the two vesselsparted; the crew of the pequod looking with grave, lingering glances towards the receding bachelor; but the bachelor's mennever heeding their gaze for the lively revelry they were in. and as ahab, leaning over the taffrail,eyed the homewardbound craft, he took from his pocket a small vial of sand, and thenlooking from the ship to the vial, seemed thereby bringing two remote associations together, for that vial was filled withnantucket soundings. chapter 116.the dying whale.

not seldom in this life, when, on the rightside, fortune's favourites sail close by us, we, though all adroop before, catchsomewhat of the rushing breeze, and joyfully feel our bagging sails fill out. so seemed it with the pequod.for next day after encountering the gay bachelor, whales were seen and four wereslain; and one of them by ahab. it was far down the afternoon; and when allthe spearings of the crimson fight were done: and floating in the lovely sunset seaand sky, sun and whale both stilly died together; then, such a sweetness and such plaintiveness, such inwreathing orisonscurled up in that rosy air, that it almost

seemed as if far over from the deep greenconvent valleys of the manilla isles, the spanish land-breeze, wantonly turned sailor, had gone to sea, freighted withthese vesper hymns. soothed again, but only soothed to deepergloom, ahab, who had sterned off from the whale, sat intently watching his finalwanings from the now tranquil boat. for that strange spectacle observable inall sperm whales dying--the turning sunwards of the head, and so expiring--thatstrange spectacle, beheld of such a placid evening, somehow to ahab conveyed awondrousness unknown before. "he turns and turns him to it,--how slowly,but how steadfastly, his homage-rendering

and invoking brow, with his last dyingmotions. he too worships fire; most faithful, broad,baronial vassal of the sun!--oh that these too-favouring eyes should see these too-favouring sights. look! here, far water-locked; beyond allhum of human weal or woe; in these most candid and impartial seas; where totraditions no rocks furnish tablets; where for long chinese ages, the billows have still rolled on speechless and unspoken to,as stars that shine upon the niger's unknown source; here, too, life diessunwards full of faith; but see! no sooner dead, than death whirls round the corpse,and it heads some other way.

"oh, thou dark hindoo half of nature, whoof drowned bones hast builded thy separate throne somewhere in the heart of theseunverdured seas; thou art an infidel, thou queen, and too truly speakest to me in the wide-slaughtering typhoon, and the hushedburial of its after calm. nor has this thy whale sunwards turned hisdying head, and then gone round again, without a lesson to me. "oh, trebly hooped and welded hip of power!oh, high aspiring, rainbowed jet!--that one strivest, this one jettest all in vain! in vain, oh whale, dost thou seekintercedings with yon all-quickening sun,

that only calls forth life, but gives itnot again. yet dost thou, darker half, rock me with aprouder, if a darker faith. all thy unnamable imminglings float beneathme here; i am buoyed by breaths of once living things, exhaled as air, but waternow. "then hail, for ever hail, o sea, in whoseeternal tossings the wild fowl finds his only rest. born of earth, yet suckled by the sea;though hill and valley mothered me, ye billows are my foster-brothers!" chapter 117.the whale watch.

the four whales slain that evening had diedwide apart; one, far to windward; one, less distant, to leeward; one ahead; one astern. these last three were brought alongside erenightfall; but the windward one could not be reached till morning; and the boat thathad killed it lay by its side all night; and that boat was ahab's. the waif-pole was thrust upright into thedead whale's spout-hole; and the lantern hanging from its top, cast a troubledflickering glare upon the black, glossy back, and far out upon the midnight waves, which gently chafed the whale's broadflank, like soft surf upon a beach.

ahab and all his boat's crew seemed asleepbut the parsee; who crouching in the bow, sat watching the sharks, that spectrallyplayed round the whale, and tapped the light cedar planks with their tails. a sound like the moaning in squadrons overasphaltites of unforgiven ghosts of gomorrah, ran shuddering through the air. started from his slumbers, ahab, face toface, saw the parsee; and hooped round by the gloom of the night they seemed the lastmen in a flooded world. "i have dreamed it again," said he. "of the hearses?have i not said, old man, that neither

hearse nor coffin can be thine?""and who are hearsed that die on the sea?" "but i said, old man, that ere thou couldstdie on this voyage, two hearses must verily be seen by thee on the sea; the first notmade by mortal hands; and the visible wood of the last one must be grown in america." "aye, aye! a strange sight that, parsee:--ahearse and its plumes floating over the ocean with the waves for the pall-bearers.ha! such a sight we shall not soon see." "believe it or not, thou canst not die tillit be seen, old man." "and what was that saying about thyself?""though it come to the last, i shall still go before thee thy pilot."

"and when thou art so gone before--if thatever befall--then ere i can follow, thou must still appear to me, to pilot mestill?--was it not so? well, then, did i believe all ye say, oh mypilot! i have here two pledges that i shall yetslay moby dick and survive it." "take another pledge, old man," said theparsee, as his eyes lighted up like fire- flies in the gloom--"hemp only can killthee." "the gallows, ye mean.--i am immortal then,on land and on sea," cried ahab, with a laugh of derision;--"immortal on land andon sea!" both were silent again, as one man.

the grey dawn came on, and the slumberingcrew arose from the boat's bottom, and ere noon the dead whale was brought to theship. chapter 118.the quadrant. the season for the line at length drewnear; and every day when ahab, coming from his cabin, cast his eyes aloft, thevigilant helmsman would ostentatiously handle his spokes, and the eager mariners quickly run to the braces, and would standthere with all their eyes centrally fixed on the nailed doubloon; impatient for theorder to point the ship's prow for the equator.

in good time the order came. it was hard upon high noon; and ahab,seated in the bows of his high-hoisted boat, was about taking his wonted dailyobservation of the sun to determine his latitude. now, in that japanese sea, the days insummer are as freshets of effulgences. that unblinkingly vivid japanese sun seemsthe blazing focus of the glassy ocean's immeasurable burning-glass. the sky looks lacquered; clouds there arenone; the horizon floats; and this nakedness of unrelieved radiance is as theinsufferable splendors of god's throne.

well that ahab's quadrant was furnishedwith coloured glasses, through which to take sight of that solar fire. so, swinging his seated form to the roll ofthe ship, and with his astrological-looking instrument placed to his eye, he remainedin that posture for some moments to catch the precise instant when the sun shouldgain its precise meridian. meantime while his whole attention wasabsorbed, the parsee was kneeling beneath him on the ship's deck, and with facethrown up like ahab's, was eyeing the same sun with him; only the lids of his eyes half hooded their orbs, and his wild facewas subdued to an earthly passionlessness.

at length the desired observation wastaken; and with his pencil upon his ivory leg, ahab soon calculated what his latitudemust be at that precise instant. then falling into a moment's revery, heagain looked up towards the sun and murmured to himself: "thou sea-mark! thouhigh and mighty pilot! thou tellest me truly where i am--but canst thou cast theleast hint where i shall be? or canst thou tell where some other thingbesides me is this moment living? where is moby dick? this instant thou must be eyeing him. these eyes of mine look into the very eyethat is even now beholding him; aye, and

into the eye that is even now equallybeholding the objects on the unknown, thither side of thee, thou sun!" then gazing at his quadrant, and handling,one after the other, its numerous cabalistical contrivances, he ponderedagain, and muttered: "foolish toy! babies' plaything of haughty admirals, and commodores, and captains; the world bragsof thee, of thy cunning and might; but what after all canst thou do, but tell the poor,pitiful point, where thou thyself happenest to be on this wide planet, and the handthat holds thee: no! not one jot more! thou canst not tell where one drop of wateror one grain of sand will be to-morrow

noon; and yet with thy impotence thouinsultest the sun! science! curse thee, thou vain toy; and cursed beall the things that cast man's eyes aloft to that heaven, whose live vividness butscorches him, as these old eyes are even now scorched with thy light, o sun! level by nature to this earth's horizon arethe glances of man's eyes; not shot from the crown of his head, as if god had meanthim to gaze on his firmament. curse thee, thou quadrant!" dashing it tothe deck, "no longer will i guide my earthly way by thee; the level ship'scompass, and the level deadreckoning, by

log and by line; these shall conduct me,and show me my place on the sea. aye," lighting from the boat to the deck,"thus i trample on thee, thou paltry thing that feebly pointest on high; thus i splitand destroy thee!" as the frantic old man thus spoke and thustrampled with his live and dead feet, a sneering triumph that seemed meant forahab, and a fatalistic despair that seemed meant for himself--these passed over themute, motionless parsee's face. unobserved he rose and glided away; while,awestruck by the aspect of their commander, the seamen clustered together on theforecastle, till ahab, troubledly pacing the deck, shouted out--"to the braces!

up helm!--square in!" in an instant the yards swung round; and asthe ship half-wheeled upon her heel, her three firm-seated graceful masts erectlypoised upon her long, ribbed hull, seemed as the three horatii pirouetting on onesufficient steed. standing between the knight-heads, starbuckwatched the pequod's tumultuous way, and ahab's also, as he went lurching along thedeck. "i have sat before the dense coal fire andwatched it all aglow, full of its tormented flaming life; and i have seen it wane atlast, down, down, to dumbest dust. old man of oceans! of all this fiery lifeof thine, what will at length remain but

one little heap of ashes!" "aye," cried stubb, "but sea-coal ashes--mind ye that, mr. starbuck--sea-coal, not your common charcoal. well, well; i heard ahab mutter, 'here someone thrusts these cards into these old hands of mine; swears that i must playthem, and no others.' and damn me, ahab, but thou actest right;live in the game, and die in it!" -chapter 119.the candles. warmest climes but nurse the cruellestfangs: the tiger of bengal crouches in spiced groves of ceaseless verdure.

skies the most effulgent but basket thedeadliest thunders: gorgeous cuba knows tornadoes that never swept tame northernlands. so, too, it is, that in these resplendentjapanese seas the mariner encounters the direst of all storms, the typhoon. it will sometimes burst from out thatcloudless sky, like an exploding bomb upon a dazed and sleepy town. towards evening of that day, the pequod wastorn of her canvas, and bare-poled was left to fight a typhoon which had struck herdirectly ahead. when darkness came on, sky and sea roaredand split with the thunder, and blazed with

the lightning, that showed the disabledmasts fluttering here and there with the rags which the first fury of the tempesthad left for its after sport. holding by a shroud, starbuck was standingon the quarter-deck; at every flash of the lightning glancing aloft, to see whatadditional disaster might have befallen the intricate hamper there; while stubb and flask were directing the men in the higherhoisting and firmer lashing of the boats. but all their pains seemed naught. though lifted to the very top of thecranes, the windward quarter boat (ahab's) did not escape.

a great rolling sea, dashing high upagainst the reeling ship's high teetering side, stove in the boat's bottom at thestern, and left it again, all dripping through like a sieve. "bad work, bad work!mr. starbuck," said stubb, regarding the wreck, "but the sea will have its way.stubb, for one, can't fight it. you see, mr. starbuck, a wave has such agreat long start before it leaps, all round the world it runs, and then comes thespring! but as for me, all the start i have to meetit, is just across the deck here. but never mind; it's all in fun: so the oldsong says;"--(sings.)

oh! jolly is the gale,and a joker is the whale, a' flourishin' his tail,--such a funny, sporty, gamy, jesty, joky, hoky-poky lad, is the ocean, oh! the scud all a flyin',that's his flip only foamin'; when he stirs in the spicin',--such a funny, sporty, gamy, jesty, thunder splits the ships,but he only smacks his lips, a tastin' of this flip,--such a funny, sporty, gamy, jesty, "avast stubb," cried starbuck, "let thetyphoon sing, and strike his harp here in our rigging; but if thou art a brave manthou wilt hold thy peace."

"but i am not a brave man; never said i wasa brave man; i am a coward; and i sing to keep up my spirits. and i tell you what it is, mr. starbuck,there's no way to stop my singing in this world but to cut my throat.and when that's done, ten to one i sing ye the doxology for a wind-up." "madman! look through my eyes if thou hastnone of thine own." "what! how can you see better of a darknight than anybody else, never mind how foolish?" "here!" cried starbuck, seizing stubb bythe shoulder, and pointing his hand towards

the weather bow, "markest thou not that thegale comes from the eastward, the very course ahab is to run for moby dick? the very course he swung to this day noon? nowmark his boat there; where is that stove? in the stern-sheets, man; where he is wontto stand--his stand-point is stove, man! now jump overboard, and sing away, if thoumust! "i don't half understand ye: what's in thewind?" "yes, yes, round the cape of good hope isthe shortest way to nantucket," soliloquized starbuck suddenly, heedless ofstubb's question. "the gale that now hammers at us to staveus, we can turn it into a fair wind that

will drive us towards home. yonder, to windward, all is blackness ofdoom; but to leeward, homeward--i see it lightens up there; but not with thelightning." at that moment in one of the intervals ofprofound darkness, following the flashes, a voice was heard at his side; and almost atthe same instant a volley of thunder peals rolled overhead. "who's there?""old thunder!" said ahab, groping his way along the bulwarks to his pivot-hole; butsuddenly finding his path made plain to him by elbowed lances of fire.

now, as the lightning rod to a spire onshore is intended to carry off the perilous fluid into the soil; so the kindred rodwhich at sea some ships carry to each mast, is intended to conduct it into the water. but as this conductor must descend toconsiderable depth, that its end may avoid all contact with the hull; and as moreover,if kept constantly towing there, it would be liable to many mishaps, besides interfering not a little with some of therigging, and more or less impeding the vessel's way in the water; because of allthis, the lower parts of a ship's lightning-rods are not always overboard;

but are generally made in long slenderlinks, so as to be the more readily hauled up into the chains outside, or thrown downinto the sea, as occasion may require. "the rods! the rods!" cried starbuck to thecrew, suddenly admonished to vigilance by the vivid lightning that had just beendarting flambeaux, to light ahab to his post. "are they overboard? drop them over, foreand aft. quick!""avast!" cried ahab; "let's have fair play here, though we be the weaker side. yet i'll contribute to raise rods on thehimmalehs and andes, that all the world may

be secured; but out on privileges!let them be, sir." "look aloft!" cried starbuck. "the corpusants! the corpusants!" all the yard-arms were tipped with a pallidfire; and touched at each tri-pointed lightning-rod-end with three tapering whiteflames, each of the three tall masts was silently burning in that sulphurous air, like three gigantic wax tapers before analtar. "blast the boat! let it go!" cried stubb atthis instant, as a swashing sea heaved up under his own little craft, so that itsgunwale violently jammed his hand, as he

was passing a lashing. "blast it!"--but slipping backward on thedeck, his uplifted eyes caught the flames; and immediately shifting his tone he cried--"the corpusants have mercy on us all!" to sailors, oaths are household words; theywill swear in the trance of the calm, and in the teeth of the tempest; they willimprecate curses from the topsail-yard- arms, when most they teeter over to a seething sea; but in all my voyagings,seldom have i heard a common oath when god's burning finger has been laid on theship; when his "mene, mene, tekel upharsin" has been woven into the shrouds and thecordage.

while this pallidness was burning aloft,few words were heard from the enchanted crew; who in one thick cluster stood on theforecastle, all their eyes gleaming in that pale phosphorescence, like a far awayconstellation of stars. relieved against the ghostly light, thegigantic jet negro, daggoo, loomed up to thrice his real stature, and seemed theblack cloud from which the thunder had come. the parted mouth of tashtego revealed hisshark-white teeth, which strangely gleamed as if they too had been tipped bycorpusants; while lit up by the preternatural light, queequeg's tattooing

burned like satanic blue flames on hisbody. the tableau all waned at last with thepallidness aloft; and once more the pequod and every soul on her decks were wrapped ina pall. a moment or two passed, when starbuck,going forward, pushed against some one. it was stubb."what thinkest thou now, man; i heard thy cry; it was not the same in the song." "no, no, it wasn't; i said the corpusantshave mercy on us all; and i hope they will, still.but do they only have mercy on long faces?- -have they no bowels for a laugh?

and look ye, mr. starbuck--but it's toodark to look. hear me, then: i take that mast-head flamewe saw for a sign of good luck; for those masts are rooted in a hold that is going tobe chock a' block with sperm-oil, d'ye see; and so, all that sperm will work up intothe masts, like sap in a tree. yes, our three masts will yet be as threespermaceti candles--that's the good promise we saw." at that moment starbuck caught sight ofstubb's face slowly beginning to glimmer into sight. glancing upwards, he cried: "see! see!" andonce more the high tapering flames were

beheld with what seemed redoubledsupernaturalness in their pallor. "the corpusants have mercy on us all,"cried stubb, again. at the base of the mainmast, full beneaththe doubloon and the flame, the parsee was kneeling in ahab's front, but with his headbowed away from him; while near by, from the arched and overhanging rigging, where they had just been engaged securing a spar,a number of the seamen, arrested by the glare, now cohered together, and hungpendulous, like a knot of numbed wasps from a drooping, orchard twig. in various enchanted attitudes, like thestanding, or stepping, or running skeletons

in herculaneum, others remained rooted tothe deck; but all their eyes upcast. "aye, aye, men!" cried ahab. "look up at it; mark it well; the whiteflame but lights the way to the white whale! hand me those mainmast links there; i wouldfain feel this pulse, and let mine beat against it; blood against fire!so." then turning--the last link held fast inhis left hand, he put his foot upon the parsee; and with fixed upward eye, andhigh-flung right arm, he stood erect before the lofty tri-pointed trinity of flames.

"oh! thou clear spirit of clear fire, whomon these seas i as persian once did worship, till in the sacramental act soburned by thee, that to this hour i bear the scar; i now know thee, thou clear spirit, and i now know that thy rightworship is defiance. to neither love nor reverence wilt thou bekind; and e'en for hate thou canst but kill; and all are killed. no fearless fool now fronts thee.i own thy speechless, placeless power; but to the last gasp of my earthquake life willdispute its unconditional, unintegral mastery in me.

in the midst of the personified impersonal,a personality stands here. though but a point at best; whencesoe'er icame; wheresoe'er i go; yet while i earthly live, the queenly personality lives in me,and feels her royal rights. but war is pain, and hate is woe. come in thy lowest form of love, and i willkneel and kiss thee; but at thy highest, come as mere supernal power; and thoughthou launchest navies of full-freighted worlds, there's that in here that stillremains indifferent. oh, thou clear spirit, of thy fire thoumadest me, and like a true child of fire, i breathe it back to thee."

[sudden, repeated flashes of lightning; thenine flames leap lengthwise to thrice their previous height; ahab, with the rest,closes his eyes, his right hand pressed hard upon them.] "i own thy speechless, placeless power;said i not so? nor was it wrung from me; nor do i now dropthese links. thou canst blind; but i can then grope. thou canst consume; but i can then beashes. take the homage of these poor eyes, andshutter-hands. i would not take it.

the lightning flashes through my skull;mine eye-balls ache and ache; my whole beaten brain seems as beheaded, and rollingon some stunning ground. oh, oh! yet blindfold, yet will i talk to thee.light though thou be, thou leapest out of darkness; but i am darkness leaping out oflight, leaping out of thee! the javelins cease; open eyes; see, or not? there burn the flames!oh, thou magnanimous! now i do glory in my genealogy.but thou art but my fiery father; my sweet mother, i know not.

oh, cruel! what hast thou done with her?there lies my puzzle; but thine is greater. thou knowest not how came ye, hence callestthyself unbegotten; certainly knowest not thy beginning, hence callest thyselfunbegun. i know that of me, which thou knowest notof thyself, oh, thou omnipotent. there is some unsuffusing thing beyondthee, thou clear spirit, to whom all thy eternity is but time, all thy creativenessmechanical. through thee, thy flaming self, my scorchedeyes do dimly see it. oh, thou foundling fire, thou hermitimmemorial, thou too hast thy incommunicable riddle, thy unparticipatedgrief.

here again with haughty agony, i read mysire. leap! leap up, and lick the sky! i leap with thee; i burn with thee; wouldfain be welded with thee; defyingly i worship thee!""the boat! the boat!" cried starbuck, "look at thy boat, old man!" ahab's harpoon, the one forged at perth'sfire, remained firmly lashed in its conspicuous crotch, so that it projectedbeyond his whale-boat's bow; but the sea that had stove its bottom had caused the loose leather sheath to drop off; and fromthe keen steel barb there now came a

levelled flame of pale, forked fire. as the silent harpoon burned there like aserpent's tongue, starbuck grasped ahab by the arm--"god, god is against thee, oldman; forbear! 'tis an ill voyage! ill begun, illcontinued; let me square the yards, while we may, old man, and make a fair wind of ithomewards, to go on a better voyage than this." overhearing starbuck, the panic-strickencrew instantly ran to the braces--though not a sail was left aloft. for the moment all the aghast mate'sthoughts seemed theirs; they raised a half

mutinous cry. but dashing the rattling lightning links tothe deck, and snatching the burning harpoon, ahab waved it like a torch amongthem; swearing to transfix with it the first sailor that but cast loose a rope'send. petrified by his aspect, and still moreshrinking from the fiery dart that he held, the men fell back in dismay, and ahab againspoke:-- "all your oaths to hunt the white whale areas binding as mine; and heart, soul, and body, lungs and life, old ahab is bound. and that ye may know to what tune thisheart beats; look ye here; thus i blow out

the last fear!"and with one blast of his breath he extinguished the flame. as in the hurricane that sweeps the plain,men fly the neighborhood of some lone, gigantic elm, whose very height andstrength but render it so much the more unsafe, because so much the more a mark for thunderbolts; so at those last words ofahab's many of the mariners did run from him in a terror of dismay. chapter 120.the deck towards the end of the first night watch.

ahab standing by the helm.starbuck approaching him. "we must send down the main-top-sail yard,sir. the band is working loose and the lee liftis half-stranded. shall i strike it, sir?""strike nothing; lash it. if i had sky-sail poles, i'd sway them upnow." "sir!--in god's name!--sir?""well." "the anchors are working, sir. shall i get them inboard?""strike nothing, and stir nothing, but lash everything.the wind rises, but it has not got up to my

table-lands yet. quick, and see to it.--by masts and keels!he takes me for the hunch-backed skipper of some coasting smack.send down my main-top-sail yard! ho, gluepots! loftiest trucks were made for wildestwinds, and this brain-truck of mine now sails amid the cloud-scud.shall i strike that? oh, none but cowards send down their brain-trucks in tempest time. what a hooroosh aloft there!i would e'en take it for sublime, did i not know that the colic is a noisy malady.

oh, take medicine, take medicine!" chapter 121.midnight.--the forecastle bulwarks. stubb and flask mounted on them, andpassing additional lashings over the anchors there hanging. "no, stubb; you may pound that knot thereas much as you please, but you will never pound into me what you were just nowsaying. and how long ago is it since you said thevery contrary? didn't you once say that whatever ship ahabsails in, that ship should pay something extra on its insurance policy, just asthough it were loaded with powder barrels

aft and boxes of lucifers forward? stop, now; didn't you say so?""well, suppose i did? what then?i've part changed my flesh since that time, why not my mind? besides, supposing we are loaded withpowder barrels aft and lucifers forward; how the devil could the lucifers get afirein this drenching spray here? why, my little man, you have pretty redhair, but you couldn't get afire now. shake yourself; you're aquarius, or thewater-bearer, flask; might fill pitchers at your coat collar.

don't you see, then, that for these extrarisks the marine insurance companies have extra guarantees?here are hydrants, flask. but hark, again, and i'll answer ye theother thing. first take your leg off from the crown ofthe anchor here, though, so i can pass the rope; now listen. what's the mighty difference betweenholding a mast's lightning-rod in the storm, and standing close by a mast thathasn't got any lightning-rod at all in a storm? don't you see, you timber-head, that noharm can come to the holder of the rod,

unless the mast is first struck?what are you talking about, then? not one ship in a hundred carries rods, andahab,--aye, man, and all of us,--were in no more danger then, in my poor opinion, thanall the crews in ten thousand ships now sailing the seas. why, you king-post, you, i suppose youwould have every man in the world go about with a small lightning-rod running up thecorner of his hat, like a militia officer's skewered feather, and trailing behind likehis sash. why don't ye be sensible, flask? it's easyto be sensible; why don't ye, then? any man with half an eye can be sensible."

"i don't know that, stubb.you sometimes find it rather hard." "yes, when a fellow's soaked through, it'shard to be sensible, that's a fact. and i am about drenched with this spray. never mind; catch the turn there, and passit. seems to me we are lashing down theseanchors now as if they were never going to be used again. tying these two anchors here, flask, seemslike tying a man's hands behind him. and what big generous hands they are, to besure. these are your iron fists, hey?

what a hold they have, too!i wonder, flask, whether the world is anchored anywhere; if she is, she swingswith an uncommon long cable, though. there, hammer that knot down, and we'vedone. so; next to touching land, lighting on deckis the most satisfactory. i say, just wring out my jacket skirts,will ye? thank ye. they laugh at long-togs so, flask; butseems to me, a long tailed coat ought always to be worn in all storms afloat.the tails tapering down that way, serve to carry off the water, d'ye see.

same with cocked hats; the cocks formgable-end eave-troughs, flask. no more monkey-jackets and tarpaulins forme; i must mount a swallow-tail, and drive down a beaver; so. halloa! whew! there goes my tarpaulinoverboard; lord, lord, that the winds that come from heaven should be so unmannerly!this is a nasty night, lad." chapter 122.midnight aloft.--thunder and lightning. the main-top-sail yard.--tashtego passingnew lashings around it. "um, um, um.stop that thunder! plenty too much thunder up here.

what's the use of thunder?um, um, um. we don't want thunder; we want rum; give usa glass of rum. um, um, um!" chapter 123.the musket. during the most violent shocks of thetyphoon, the man at the pequod's jaw-bone tiller had several times been reelinglyhurled to the deck by its spasmodic motions, even though preventer tackles had been attached to it--for they were slack--because some play to the tiller was indispensable.

in a severe gale like this, while the shipis but a tossed shuttlecock to the blast, it is by no means uncommon to see theneedles in the compasses, at intervals, go round and round. it was thus with the pequod's; at almostevery shock the helmsman had not failed to notice the whirling velocity with whichthey revolved upon the cards; it is a sight that hardly anyone can behold without somesort of unwonted emotion. some hours after midnight, the typhoonabated so much, that through the strenuous exertions of starbuck and stubb--oneengaged forward and the other aft--the shivered remnants of the jib and fore and

main-top-sails were cut adrift from thespars, and went eddying away to leeward, like the feathers of an albatross, whichsometimes are cast to the winds when that storm-tossed bird is on the wing. the three corresponding new sails were nowbent and reefed, and a storm-trysail was set further aft; so that the ship soon wentthrough the water with some precision again; and the course--for the present, east-south-east--which he was to steer, ifpracticable, was once more given to the helmsman.for during the violence of the gale, he had only steered according to its vicissitudes.

but as he was now bringing the ship as nearher course as possible, watching the compass meanwhile, lo! a good sign! thewind seemed coming round astern; aye, the foul breeze became fair! instantly the yards were squared, to thelively song of "ho! the fair wind! oh-ye- ho, cheerly men!" the crew singing for joy,that so promising an event should so soon have falsified the evil portents precedingit. in compliance with the standing order ofhis commander--to report immediately, and at any one of the twenty-four hours, anydecided change in the affairs of the deck -,-starbuck had no sooner trimmed the yards

to the breeze--however reluctantly andgloomily,--than he mechanically went below to apprise captain ahab of thecircumstance. ere knocking at his state-room, heinvoluntarily paused before it a moment. the cabin lamp--taking long swings this wayand that--was burning fitfully, and casting fitful shadows upon the old man's bolteddoor,--a thin one, with fixed blinds inserted, in place of upper panels. the isolated subterraneousness of the cabinmade a certain humming silence to reign there, though it was hooped round by allthe roar of the elements. the loaded muskets in the rack wereshiningly revealed, as they stood upright

against the forward bulkhead. starbuck was an honest, upright man; butout of starbuck's heart, at that instant when he saw the muskets, there strangelyevolved an evil thought; but so blent with its neutral or good accompaniments that forthe instant he hardly knew it for itself. "he would have shot me once," he murmured,"yes, there's the very musket that he pointed at me;--that one with the studdedstock; let me touch it--lift it. strange, that i, who have handled so manydeadly lances, strange, that i should shake so now.loaded? i must see.

aye, aye; and powder in the pan;--that'snot good. best spill it?--wait.i'll cure myself of this. i'll hold the musket boldly while i think.--i come to report a fair wind to him. but how fair?fair for death and doom,--that's fair for moby dick. it's a fair wind that's only fair for thataccursed fish.--the very tube he pointed at me!--the very one; this one--i hold ithere; he would have killed me with the very thing i handle now.--aye and he would fainkill all his crew. does he not say he will not strike hisspars to any gale?

has he not dashed his heavenly quadrant?and in these same perilous seas, gropes he not his way by mere dead reckoning of theerror-abounding log? and in this very typhoon, did he not swear that he wouldhave no lightning-rods? but shall this crazed old man be tamelysuffered to drag a whole ship's company down to doom with him?--yes, it would makehim the wilful murderer of thirty men and more, if this ship come to any deadly harm; and come to deadly harm, my soul swearsthis ship will, if ahab have his way. if, then, he were this instant--put aside,that crime would not be his. ha! is he muttering in his sleep?

yes, just there,--in there, he's sleeping.sleeping? aye, but still alive, and soon awake again.i can't withstand thee, then, old man. not reasoning; not remonstrance; notentreaty wilt thou hearken to; all this thou scornest.flat obedience to thy own flat commands, this is all thou breathest. aye, and say'st the men have vow'd thy vow;say'st all of us are ahabs. great god forbid!--but is there no otherway? no lawful way?--make him a prisoner to be taken home? what! hope to wrest this old man's livingpower from his own living hands?

only a fool would try it. say he were pinioned even; knotted all overwith ropes and hawsers; chained down to ring-bolts on this cabin floor; he would bemore hideous than a caged tiger, then. i could not endure the sight; could notpossibly fly his howlings; all comfort, sleep itself, inestimable reason wouldleave me on the long intolerable voyage. what, then, remains? the land is hundreds of leagues away, andlocked japan the nearest. i stand alone here upon an open sea, withtwo oceans and a whole continent between me and law.--aye, aye, 'tis so.--is heaven amurderer when its lightning strikes a

would-be murderer in his bed, tindering sheets and skin together?--and would i be amurderer, then, if"--and slowly, stealthily, and half sideways looking, heplaced the loaded musket's end against the door. "on this level, ahab's hammock swingswithin; his head this way. a touch, and starbuck may survive to hughis wife and child again.--oh mary! mary!--boy! boy! boy!--but if i wake theenot to death, old man, who can tell to what unsounded deeps starbuck's body this dayweek may sink, with all the crew! great god, where art thou?

shall i? shall i?--the wind has gone downand shifted, sir; the fore and main topsails are reefed and set; she heads hercourse." "stern all! oh moby dick, i clutch thy heart at last!"such were the sounds that now came hurtling from out the old man's tormented sleep, asif starbuck's voice had caused the long dumb dream to speak. the yet levelled musket shook like adrunkard's arm against the panel; starbuck seemed wrestling with an angel; but turningfrom the door, he placed the death-tube in its rack, and left the place.

"he's too sound asleep, mr. stubb; go thoudown, and wake him, and tell him. i must see to the deck here.thou know'st what to say."