CHAPTER 36
The Quarter-Deck
(Enter Ahab: Then, all)
It was not a great while after the affair of the pipe,that one morning shortly after breakfast, Ahab, as was his wont,ascended the cabin-gangway to the deck. There most sea-captainsusually walk at that hour, as country gentlemen, after the same meal,take a few turns in the garden.
Soon his steady, ivory stride was heard, as to and fro he paced hisold rounds, upon planks so familiar to his tread, that they were allover dented, like geological stones, with the peculiar mark of his walk.Did you fixedly gaze, too, upon that ribbed and dented brow;there also, you would see still stranger foot-prints--the foot-printsof his one unsleeping, ever-pacing thought.
But on the occasion in question, those dents looked deeper,even as his nervous step that morning left a deeper mark.And, so full of his thought was Ahab, that at every uniform turnthat he made, now at the main-mast and now at the binnacle,you could almost see that thought turn in him as he turned,and pace in him as he paced; so completely possessing him, indeed,that it all but seemed the inward mould of every outer movement.
"D'ye mark him, Flask?" whispered Stubb; "the chick that's in himpecks the shell. 'Twill soon be out."
The hours wore on;--Ahab now shut up within his cabin;anon, pacing the deck, with the same intense bigotry of purposein his aspect.
It drew near the close of day. Suddenly he came to a halt bythe bulwarks, and inserting his bone leg into the auger-hole there,and with one hand grasping a shroud, he ordered Starbuckto send everybody aft.
"Sir!" said the mate, astonished at an order seldom or never givenon ship-board except in some extraordinary case.
"Send everybody aft," repeated Ahab. "Mast-heads, there! come down!"
When the entire ship's company were assembled, and with curiousand not wholly unapprehensive faces, were eyeing him, for he lookednot unlike the weather horizon when a storm is coming up, Ahab,after rapidly glancing over the bulwarks, and then darting hiseyes among the crew, started from his standpoint; and as thoughnot a soul were nigh him resumed his heavy turns upon the deck.With bent head and half-slouched hat he continued to pace,unmindful of the wondering whispering among the men; till Stubbcautiously whispered to Flask, that Ahab must have summonedthem there for the purpose of witnessing a pedestrian feat.But this did not last long. Vehemently pausing, he cried:--
"What do ye do when ye see a whale, men?"
"Sing out for him!" was the impulsive rejoinder from a scoreof clubbed voices.
"Good!" cried Ahab, with a wild approval in his tones;observing the hearty animation into which his unexpected questionhad so magnetically thrown them.
"And what do ye next, men?"
"Lower away, and after him!"
"And what tune is it ye pull to, men?"
"A dead whale or a stove boat!"
More and more strangely and fiercely glad and approving,grew the countenance of the old man at every shout;while the mariners began to gaze curiously at each other,as if marvelling how it was that they themselves became so excitedat such seemingly purposeless questions.
But, they were all eagerness again, as Ahab, now half-revolving in hispivot-hole, with one hand reaching high up a shroud, and tightly,almost convulsively grasping it, addressed them thus:--
"All ye mast-headers have before now heard me give orders about awhite whale. Look ye! d'ye see this Spanish ounce of gold?"--holding upa broad bright coin to the sun--"it is a sixteen dollar piece, men.D'ye see it? Mr. Starbuck, hand me yon top-maul."
While the mate was getting the hammer, Ahab, without speaking,was slowly rubbing the gold piece against the skirts of his jacket,as if to heighten its lustre, and without using any words wasmeanwhile lowly humming to himself, producing a sound so strangelymuffled and inarticulate that it seemed the mechanical hummingof the wheels of his vitality in him.
Receiving the top-maul from Starbuck, he advanced towards the main-mastwith the hammer uplifted in one hand, exhibiting the gold with the other,and with a high raised voice exclaiming: "Whosoever of ye raisesme a white-headed whale with a wrinkled brow and a crooked jaw;whosoever of ye raises me that white-headed whale, with three holespunctured in his starboard fluke--look ye, whosoever of ye raises methat same white whale, he shall have this gold ounce, my boys!"
"Huzza! huzza!" cried the seamen, as with swinging tarpaulinsthey hailed the act of nailing the gold to the mast.
"It's a white whale, I say," resumed Ahab, as he threw down the topmaul:"a white whale. Skin your eyes for him, men; look sharp for white water;if ye see but a bubble, sing out."
All this while Tashtego, Daggoo, and Queequeg had looked on with evenmore intense interest and surprise than the rest, and at the mentionof the wrinkled brow and crooked jaw they had started as if each wasseparately touched by some specific recollection.
"Captain Ahab," said Tashtego, "that white whale must be the samethat some call Moby Dick."
"Moby Dick?" shouted Ahab. "Do ye know the white whale then, Tash?"
"Does he fan-tail a little curious, sir, before he goes down?"said the Gay-Header deliberately.
"And has he a curious spout, too," said Daggoo, "very bushy,even for a parmacetty, and mighty quick, Captain Ahab?"
"And he have one, two, tree--oh! good many iron in him hide,too, Captain," cried Queequeg disjointedly, "all twiske-tee be-twisk,like him--him-" faltering hard for a word, and screwing his handround and round as though uncorking a bottle--"like him--him-"
"Corkscrew!" cried Ahab, "aye, Queequeg, the harpoons lieall twisted and wrenched in him; aye, Daggoo, his spout isa big one, like a whole shock of wheat, and white as a pileof our Nantucket wool after the great annual sheep-shearing;aye, Tashtego, and he fan-tails like a split jib in a squall.Death and devils! men, it is Moby Dick ye have seen--Moby Dick--Moby Dick!"
"Captain Ahab," said Starbuck, who, with Stubb and Flask, had thusfar been eyeing his superior with increasing surprise, but at lastseemed struck with a thought which somewhat explained all the wonder."Captain Ahab, I have heard of Moby Dick--but it was not Moby Dickthat took off thy leg?"
"Who told thee that?" cried Ahab; then pausing, "Aye, Starbuck;aye, my hearties all round; it was Moby Dick that dismasted me;Moby Dick that brought me to this dead stump I stand on now.Aye, aye," he shouted with a terrific, loud, animal sob, like that ofa heart-stricken moose; "Aye, aye! it was that accursed white whalethat razeed me; made a poor pegging lubber of me for ever and a day!"Then tossing both arms, with measureless imprecations he shouted out:"Aye, aye! and I'll chase him round Good Hope, and round the Horn,and round the Norway Maelstrom, and round perdition's flamesbefore I give him up. And this is what ye have shipped for,men! to chase that white whale on both sides of land, and over allsides of earth, till he spouts black blood and rolls fin out.What say ye, men, will ye splice hands on it, now? I think yedo look brave."
"Aye, aye!" shouted the harpooneers and seamen, running closerto the excited old man: "A sharp eye for the White Whale;a sharp lance for Moby Dick!"
"God bless ye," he seemed to half sob and half shout."God bless ye, men. Steward! go draw the great measure of grog.But what's this long face about, Mr. Starbuck; wilt thou notchase the white whale! art not game for Moby Dick?"
"I am game for his crooked jaw, and for the jaws of Death too,Captain Ahab, if it fairly comes in the way of the business we follow;but I came here to hunt whales, not my commander's vengeance.How many barrels will thy vengeance yield thee even if thou gettest it,Captain Ahab? it will not fetch thee much in our Nantucket market."
"Nantucket market! Hoot! But come closer, Starbuck;thou requirest a little lower layer. If money's to bethe measurer, man, and the accountants have computed theirgreat counting-house the globe, by girdling it with guineas,one to every three parts of an inch; then, let me tell thee,that my vengeance will fetch a great premium here!"
"He smites his chest," whispered Stubb, "what's that for? methinks itrings most vast, but hollow."
"Vengeance on a dumb brute!" cried Starbuck, "that simply smote theefrom blindest instinct! Madness! To be enraged with a dumb thing,Captain Ahab, seems blasphemous."
"Hark ye yet again--the little lower layer. All visible objects, man,are but as pasteboard masks. But in each event--in the living act,the undoubted deed--there, some unknown but still reasoningthing puts forth the mouldings of its features from behindthe unreasoning mask. If man will strike, strike through the mask!How can the prisoner reach outside except by thrusting through the wall?To me, the white whale is that wall, shoved near to me.Sometimes I think there's naught beyond. But 'tis enough.He tasks me; he heaps me; I see in him outrageous strength,with an inscrutable malice sinewing it. That inscrutablething is chiefly what I hate; and be the white whale agent,or be the white whale principal, I will wreak that hate upon him.Talk not to me of blasphemy, man; I'd strike the sun if it insulted me.For could the sun do that, then could I do the other; since there is evera sort of fair play herein, jealousy presiding over all creations.But not my master, man, is even that fair play. Who's over me?Truth hath no confines. Take off thine eye! more intolerablethan fiends' glarings is a doltish stare! So, so; thou reddenestand palest; my heat has melted thee to anger-glow. But look ye,Starbuck, what is said in heat, that thing unsays itself.There are men from whom warm words are small indignity.I meant not to incense thee. Let it go. Look! see yonder Turkishcheeks of spotted tawn--living, breathing pictures painted by the sun.The Pagan leopards--the unrecking and unworshipping things, that live;and seek, and give no reasons for the torrid life they feel!The crew, man, the crew! Are they not one and all with Ahab, in thismatter of the whale? See Stubb! he laughs! See yonder Chilian!he snorts to think of it. Stand up amid the general hurricane,thy one tost sapling cannot, Starbuck! And what is it?Reckon it. 'Tis but to help strike a fin; no wondrous featfor Starbuck. What is it more? From this one poor hunt,then, the best lance out of all Nantucket, surely he will nothang back, when every foremast-hand has clutched a whetstone.Ah! constrainings seize thee; I see! the billow lifts thee!Speak, but speak!--Aye, aye! thy silence, then, that voices thee.(Aside) Something shot from my dilated nostrils, he hasinhaled it in his lungs. Starbuck now is mine; cannot opposeme now, without rebellion."
"God keep me!--keep us all!" murmured Starbuck, lowly.
But in his joy at the enchanted, tacit acquiescence of the mate,Ahab did not hear his foreboding invocation; nor yet the lowlaugh from the hold; nor yet the presaging vibrations ofthe winds in the cordage; nor yet the hollow flap of the sailsagainst the masts, as for a moment their hearts sank in.For again Starbuck's downcast eyes lighted up with the stubbornnessof life; the subterranean laugh died away; the winds blew on;the sails filled out; the ship heaved and rolled as before.Ah, ye admonitions and warnings! why stay ye not when ye come?But rather are ye predictions than warnings, ye shadows!Yet not so much predictions from without, as verificationsof the fore-going things within. For with little externalto constrain us, the innermost necessities in our being,these still drive us on.
"The measure! the measure!" cried Ahab.
Receiving the brimming pewter, and turning to the harpooneers,he ordered them to produce their weapons. Then ranging thembefore him near the capstan, with their harpoons in their hands,while his three mates stood at his side with their lances,and the rest of the ship's company formed a circle round the group;he stood for an instant searchingly eyeing every man of his crew.But those wild eyes met his, as the bloodshot eyes of the prairiewolves meet the eye of their leader, ere he rushes on at their headin the trail of the bison; but, alas! only to fall into the hiddensnare of the Indian.
"Drink and pass!" he cried, handing the heavy chargedflagon to the nearest seaman. "The crew alone now drink.Round with it, round! Short draughts--long swallows, men;'tis hot as Satan's hoof. So, so; it goes round excellently.It spiralizes in ye; forks out at the serpent-snapping eye.Well done; almost drained. That way it went, this way it comes.Hand it me--here's a hollow! Men, ye seem the years;so brimming life is gulped and gone. Steward, refill!
"Attend now, my braves. I have mustered ye all round this capstan;and ye mates, flank me with your lances; and ye harpooneers, stand therewith your irons; and ye, stout mariners, ring me in, that I may in somesort revive a noble custom of my fisherman fathers before me. O men,you will yet see that--Ha! boy, come back? bad pennies come not sooner.Hand it me. Why, now, this pewter had run brimming again, wert not thouSt. Vitus' imp--away, thou ague!
"Advance, ye mates! Cross your lances full before me. Well done!Let me touch the axis." So saying, with extended arm, he graspedthe three level, radiating lances at their crossed centre;while so doing, suddenly and nervously twitched them;meanwhile glancing intently from Starbuck to Stubb; from Stubbto Flask. It seemed as though, by some nameless, interior volition,he would fain have shocked into them the same fiery emotionaccumulated within the Leyden jar of his own magnetic life.The three mates quailed before his strong, sustained, and mystic aspect.Stubb and Flask looked sideways from him; the honest eye ofStarbuck fell downright.
"In vain!" cried Ahab; "but, maybe, 'tis well. For did ye three but oncetake the full-forced shock, then mine own electric thing, that had perhapsexpired from out me. Perchance, too, it would have dropped ye dead.Perchance ye need it not. Down lances! And now, ye mates,I do appoint ye three cupbearers to my three pagan kinsmen there--yon three most honorable gentlemen and noblemen, my valiant harpooneers.Disdain the task? What, when the great Pope washes the feet of beggars,using his tiara for ewer? Oh, my sweet cardinals! your own condescension,that shall bend ye to it. I do not order ye; ye will it.Cut your seizings and draw the poles, ye harpooneers!"
Silently obeying the order, the three harpooneers now stoodwith the detached iron part of their harpoons, some threefeet long, held, barbs up, before him.
"Stab me not with that keen steel! Cant them; cant themover! know ye not the goblet end? Turn up the socket!So, so; now, ye cup-bearers, advance. The irons! take them;hold them while I fill!" Forthwith, slowly going from one officerto the other, he brimmed the harpoon sockets with the fierywaters from the pewter.
"Now, three to three, ye stand. Commend the murderous chalices!Bestow them, ye who are now made parties to thisindissoluble league. Ha! Starbuck! but the deed is done!Yon ratifying sun now waits to sit upon it. Drink, ye harpooneers!drink and swear, ye men that man the deathful whaleboat's bow--Death to Moby Dick! God hunt us all, if we do not hunt Moby Dickto his death!" The long, barbed steel goblets were lifted;and to cries and maledictions against the white whale,the spirits were simultaneously quaffed down with a hiss.Starbuck paled, and turned, and shivered. Once more, and finally,the replenished pewter went the rounds among the frantic crew;when, waving his free hand to them, they all dispersed;and Ahab retired within his cabin.
Moby Dick; Or, The Whale Page 37
