Moby Dick; Or, The Whale

by Herman Melville

  CHAPTER 48

  The First Lowering

  The phantoms, for so they then seemed, were flitting on the otherside of the deck, and, with a noiseless celerity, were casting loosethe tackles and bands of the boat which swung there. This boat hadalways been deemed one of the spare boats, though technically calledthe captain's, on account of its hanging from the starboard quarter.The figure that now stood by its bows was tall and swart,with one white tooth evilly protruding from its steel-like lips.A rumpled Chinese jacket of black cotton funereally invested him,with wide black trowsers of the same dark stuff. But strangelycrowning this ebonness was a glistening white plaited turban,the living hair braided and coiled round and round upon his head.Less swart in aspect, the companions of this figure were of that vivid,tiger-yellow complexion peculiar to some of the aboriginal nativesof the Manillas;--a race notorious for a certain diabolism of subtilty,and by some honest white mariners supposed to be the paid spiesand secret confidential agents on the water of the devil, their lord,whose counting-room they suppose to be elsewhere.

  While yet the wondering ship's company were gazing upon these strangers,Ahab cried out to the white-turbaned old man at their head,"All ready there, Fedallah?"

  "Ready," was the half-hissed reply.

  "Lower away then; d'ye hear?" shouting across the deck."Lower away there, I say."

  Such was the thunder of his voice, that spite of theiramazement the men sprang over the rail; the sheaves whirledround in the blocks; with a wallow, the three boats droppedinto the sea; while, with a dexterous, off-handed daring,unknown in any other vocation, the sailors, goat-like, leapeddown the rolling ship's side into the tossed boats below.

  Hardly had they pulled out from under the ship's lee, when a fourth keel,coming from the windward side, pulled round under the stern,and showed the five strangers rowing Ahab, who, standing erectin the stern, loudly hailed Starbuck, Stubb, and Flask, to spreadthemselves widely, so as to cover a large expanse of water.But with all their eyes again riveted upon the swart Fedallah andhis crew, the inmates of the other boats obeyed not the command.

  "Captain Ahab?-" said Starbuck.

  "Spread yourselves," cried Ahab; "give way, all four boats.Thou, Flask, pull out more to leeward!"

  "Aye, aye, sir," cheerily cried little King-Post, sweeping round hisgreat steering oar. "Lay back!" addressing his crew. "There!--there!--there again! There she blows right ahead, boys!--lay back!

  "Never heed yonder yellow boys, Archy."

  "Oh, I don't mind'em, sir," said Archy; "I knew it all before now.Didn't I hear 'em in the hold? And didn't I tell Cabaco here of it?What say ye, Cabaco? They are stowaways, Mr. Flask."

  "Pull, pull, my fine hearts-alive; pull, my children;pull, my little ones," drawlingly and soothingly sighed Stubbto his crew, some of whom still showed signs of uneasiness."Why don't you break your backbones, my boys? What is it you stare at?Those chaps in yonder boat? Tut! They are only five more handscome to help us never mind from where the more the merrier.Pull, then, do pull; never mind the brimstone devils are goodfellows enough. So, so; there you are now; that's the strokefor a thousand pounds; that's the stroke to sweep the stakes!Hurrah for the gold cup of sperm oil, my heroes!Three cheers, men--all hearts alive! Easy, easy; don't be in a hurry--don't be in a hurry. Why don't you snap your oars, you rascals?Bite something, you dogs! So, so, so, then:--softly, softly!That's it--that's it! long and strong. Give way there, give way!The devil fetch ye, ye ragamuffin rapscallions; ye are all asleep.Stop snoring, ye sleepers, and pull. Pull, will ye? pull,can't ye? pull, won't ye? Why in the name of gudgeons andginger-cakes don't ye pull?--pull and break something! pull,and start your eyes out! Here," whipping out the sharp knifefrom his girdle; "every mother's son of ye draw his knife,and pull with the blade between his teeth. That's it--that's it.Now ye do something; that looks like it, my steel-bits. Start her--start her, my silverspoons! Start her, marling-spikes!"

  Stubb's exordium to his crew is given here at large,because he had rather a peculiar way of talking to them in general,and especially in inculcating the religion of rowing.But you must not suppose from this specimen of his sermonizingsthat he ever flew into downright passions with his congregation.Not at all; and therein consisted his chief peculiarity.He would say the most terrific things to his crew, in a toneso strangely compounded of fun and fury, and the fury seemedso calculated merely as a spice to the fun, that no oarsmancould hear such queer invocations without pulling fordear life, and yet pulling for the mere joke of the thing.Besides he all the time looked so easy and indolent himself,so loungingly managed his steering-oar, and so broadly gaped--open-mouthed at times--that the mere sight of such a yawning commander,by sheer force of contrast, acted like a charm upon the crew.Then again, Stubb was one of those odd sort of humorists,whose jollity is sometimes so curiously ambiguous, as to putall inferiors on their guard in the matter of obeying them.

  In obedience to a sign from Ahab, Starbuck was now pulling obliquelyacross Stubb's bow; and when for a minute or so the two boats werepretty near to each other, Stubb hailed the mate.

  "Mr. Starbuck! larboard boat there, ahoy! a word with ye, sir,if ye please!"

  "Halloa!" returned Starbuck, turning round not a single inchas he spoke; still earnestly but whisperingly urging his crew;his face set like a flint from Stubb's.

  "What think ye of those yellow boys, sir!

  "Smuggled on board, somehow, before the ship sailed.(Strong, strong, boys!)" in a whisper to his crew,then speaking out loud again: "A sad business, Mr. Stubb!(seethe her, seethe her, my lads!) but never mind, Mr. Stubb,all for the best. Let all your crew pull strong, come what will.(Spring, my men, spring!) There's hogsheads of sperm ahead,Mr. Stubb, and that's what ye came for. (Pull, my boys!)Sperm, sperm's the play! This at least is duty; duty and profithand in hand."

  "Aye, aye, I thought as much," soliloquized Stubb, when theboats diverged, "as soon as I clapt eye on 'em, I thought so.Aye, and that's what he went into the after hold for, so often,as Dough-Boy long suspected. They were hidden down there.The White Whale's at the bottom of it. Well, well, so be it!Can't be helped! All right! Give way men! It ain't the White Whaleto-day! Give way!"

  Now the advent of these outlandish strangers at such a criticalinstant as the lowering of the boats from the deck, this had notunreasonably awakened a sort of superstitious amazement in some ofthe ship's company; but Archy's fancied discovery having some timeprevious got abroad among them, though indeed not credited then,this had in some small measure prepared them for the event.It took off the extreme edge of their wonder; and so what with allthis and Stubb's confident way of accounting for their appearance,they were for the time freed from superstitious surmisings; though theaffair still left abundant room for all manner of wild conjecturesas to dark Ahab's precise agency in the matter from the beginning.For me, I silently recalled the mysterious shadows I had seencreeping on board the Pequod during the dim Nantucket dawn,as well as the enigmatical hintings of the unaccountable Elijah.

  Meantime, Ahab, out of hearing of his officers, having sidedthe furthest to windward, was still ranging ahead of the other boats;a circumstance bespeaking how potent a crew was pulling him.Those tiger yellow creatures of his seemed all steel and whalebone;like five trip-hammers they rose and fell with regular strokesof strength, which periodically started the boat along the waterlike a horizontal burst boiler out of a Mississippi steamer.As for Fedallah, who was seen pulling the harpooneer oar,he had thrown aside his black jacket, and displayed his naked chestwith the whole part of his body above the gunwale, clearly cutagainst the alternating depressions of the watery horizon;while at the other end of the boat Ahab, with one arm, like a fencer's,thrown half backward into the air, as if to counterbalance anytendency to trip; Ahab was seen steadily managing his steering oaras in a thousand boat lowerings ere the White Whale had torn him.All at once the outstretched arm gave a peculiar motionand then remained fixed, while the boat's five oars were seensimultane
ously peaked. Boat and crew sat motionless on the sea.Instantly the three spread boats in the rear paused on their way.The whales had irregularly settled bodily down into the blue,thus giving no distantly discernible token of the movement,though from his closer vicinity Ahab had observed it.

  "Every man look out along his oars!" cried Starbuck. "Thou, Queequeg,stand up!"

  Nimbly springing up on the triangular raised box in the bow,the savage stood erect there, and with intensely eager eyes gazedoff towards the spot where the chase had last been descried.Likewise upon the extreme stern of the boat where it was alsotriangularly platformed level with the gunwale, Starbuck himselfwas seen coolly and adroitly balancing himself to the jerkingtossings of his chip of a craft, and silently eyeing the vastblue eye of the sea.

  Not very far distant Flask's boat was also lying breathlessly still;its commander recklessly standing upon the top of the loggerhead,a stout sort of post rooted in the keel, and rising some two feetabove the level of the stern platform. It is used for catching turnswith the whale line. Its top is not more spacious than the palm of aman's hand, and standing upon such a base as that, Flask seemed perchedat the mast-head of some ship which had sunk to all but her trucks.But little King-Post was small and short, and at the same time littleKing-Post was full of a large and tall ambition, so that this loggerhead stand-point of his did by no means satisfy King-Post.

  "I can't see three seas off; tip us up an oar there, and letme onto that."

  Upon this, Daggoo, with either hand upon the gunwale to steady his way,swiftly slid aft, and then erecting himself volunteered his loftyshoulders for a pedestal.

  "Good a mast-head as any, sir. Will you mount?"

  "That I will, and thank ye very much, my fine fellow;only I wish you fifty feet taller."

  Whereupon planting his feet firmly against two opposite planks ofthe boat, the gigantic negro, stooping a little, presented his flat palmto Flask's foot, and then putting Flask's hand on his hearse-plumedhead and bidding him spring as he himself should toss, with onedexterous fling landed the little man high and dry on his shoulders.And here was Flask now standing, Daggoo with one lifted arm furnishinghim with a breastband to lean against and steady himself by.

  At any time it is a strange sight to the tyro to see withwhat wondrous habitude of unconscious skill the whalemanwill maintain an erect posture in his boat, even when pitchedabout by the most riotously perverse and cross-running seas.Still more strange to see him giddily perched upon the loggerhead itself, under such circumstances. But the sight of littleFlask mounted upon gigantic Daggoo was yet more curious;for sustaining himself with a cool, indifferent, easy, unthought of,barbaric majesty, the noble negro to every roll of the sea harmoniouslyrolled his fine form. On his broad back, flaxen-haired Flaskseemed a snow-flake. The bearer looked nobler than the rider.Though truly vivacious, tumultuous, ostentatious little Flaskwould now and then stamp with impatience; but not one addedheave did he thereby give to the negro's lordly chest.So have I seen Passion and Vanity stamping the livingmagnanimous earth, but the earth did not alter her tides and herseasons for that.

  Meanwhile Stubb, the third mate, betrayed no such far-gazing solicitudes.The whales might have made one of their regular soundings,not a temporary dive from mere fright; and if that were the case,Stubb, as his wont in such cases, it seems, was resolved to solacethe languishing interval with his pipe. He withdrew it fromhis hatband, where he always wore it aslant like a feather.He loaded it, and rammed home the loading with his thumb-end;but hardly had he ignited his match across the rough sandpaperof his hand, when Tashtego, his harpooneer, whose eyes had beensetting to windward like two fixed stars, suddenly dropped like lightfrom his erect attitude to his seat, crying out in a quick phrensyof hurry, "Down, down all, and give way!--there they are!"

  To a landsman, no whale, nor any sign of a herring, would have beenvisible at that moment; nothing but a troubled bit of greenishwhite water, and thin scattered puffs of vapor hovering over it,and suffusingly blowing off to leeward, like the confused scud fromwhite rolling billows. The air around suddenly vibrated and tingled,as it were, like the air over intensely heated plates of iron.Beneath this atmospheric waving and curling, and partially beneatha thin layer of water, also, the whales were swimming. Seen in advanceof all the other indications, the puffs of vapor they spouted,seemed their forerunning couriers and detached flying outriders.

  All four boats were now in keen pursuit of that one spotof troubled water and air. But it bade far to outstrip them;it flew on and on, as a mass of interblending bubbles bornedown a rapid stream from the hills.

  "Pull, pull, my good boys," said Starbuck, in the lowest possiblebut intensest concentrated whisper to his men; while the sharpfixed glance from his eyes darted straight ahead of the bow,almost seemed as two visible needles in two unerring binnacle compasses.He did not say much to his crew, though, nor did his crew say anythingto him. Only the silence of the boat was at intervals startlinglypierced by one of his peculiar whispers, now harsh with command,now soft with entreaty.

  How different the loud little King-Post. "Sing out andsay something, my hearties. Roar and pull, my thunderbolts!Beach me, beach me on their black backs, boys; only do that for me,and I'll sign over to you my Martha's Vineyard plantation, boys;including wife and children, boys. Lay me on--lay me on!O Lord, Lord! but I shall go stark, staring mad! See! see thatwhite water!" And so shouting, he pulled his hat from his head,and stamped up and down on it; then picking it up, flirted itfar off upon the sea; and finally fell to rearing and plungingin the boat's stern like a crazed colt from the prairie.

  "Look at that chap now," philosophically drawled Stubb, who, with hisunlighted short pipe, mechanically retained between his teeth,at a short distance, followed after--"He's got fits, that Flask has.Fits? yes, give him fits--that's the very word--pitch fits into 'em.Merrily, merrily, hearts-alive. Pudding for supper, you know;--merry's the word. Pull, babes--pull, sucklings--pull, all.But what the devil are you hurrying about? Softly, softly,and steadily, my men. Only pull, and keep pulling; nothing more.Crack all your backbones, and bite your knives in two--that's all.Take it easy--why don't ye take it easy, I say, and burst all yourlivers and lungs!"

  But what it was that inscrutable Ahab said to thattiger-yellow crew of his--these were words best omitted here;for you live under the blessed light of the evangelical land.Only the infidel sharks in the audacious seas may give earto such words, when, with tornado brow, and eyes of red murder,and foam-glued lips, Ahab leaped after his prey.

  Meanwhile, all the boats tore on. The repeated specificallusions of Flask to "that whale," as he called the fictitiousmonster which he declared to be incessantly tantalizinghis boat's bow with its tail--these allusions of his were attimes so vivid and life-like, that they would cause some oneor two of his men to snatch a fearful look over his shoulder.But this was against all rule; for the oarsmen must putout their eyes, and ram a skewer through their necks;usages announcing that they must have no organs but ears;and no limbs but arms, in these critical moments.

  It was a sight full of quick wonder and awe! The vast swellsof the omnipotent sea; the surging, hollow roar they made,as they rolled along the eight gunwales, like gigantic bowls in aboundless bowling-green; the brief suspended agony of the boat,as it would tip for an instant on the knife-like edge of thesharper waves, that almost seemed threatening to cut it in two;the sudden profound dip into the watery glens and hollows;the keen spurrings and goadings to gain the top of the opposite hill;the headlong, sled-like slide down its other side;--all these,with the cries of the headsmen and harpooneers, and the shudderinggasps of the oarsmen, with the wondrous sight of the ivoryPequod bearing down upon her boats with outstretched sails,like a wild hen after her screaming brood;--all this was thrilling.Not the raw recruit, marching from the bosom of his wife intothe fever heat of his first battle; not the dead man's ghostencountering the first unknown phantom in the other world;--neither of these can feel stranger and stronger e
motions thanthat man does, who for the first time finds himself pullinginto the charmed, churned circle of the hunted sperm whale.

  The dancing white water made by the chase was now becoming moreand more visible, owing to the increasing darkness of the duncloud-shadows flung upon the sea. The jets of vapor no longer blended,but tilted everywhere to right and left; the whales seemedseparating their wakes. The boats were pulled more apart;Starbuck giving chase to three whales running dead to leeward.Our sail was now set, and, with the still rising wind, we rushed along;the boat going with such madness through the water, that the leeoars could scarcely be worked rapidly enough to escape being tornfrom the row-locks.

  Soon we were running through a suffusing wide veil of mist;neither ship nor boat to be seen.

  "Give way, men," whispered Starbuck, drawing still further aft the sheetof his sail; "there is time to kill a fish yet before the squall comes.There's white water again!--close to! Spring!"

  Soon after, two cries in quick succession on each side of us denotedthat the other boats had got fast; but hardly were they overheard,when with a lightning-like hurtling whisper Starbuck said:"Stand up!" and Queequeg, harpoon in hand, sprang to his feet.

  Though not one of the oarsmen was then facing the life and deathperil so close to them ahead, yet with their eyes on the intensecountenance of the mate in the stern of the boat, they knewthat the imminent instant had come; they heard, too, an enormouswallowing sound as of fifty elephants stirring in their litter.Meanwhile the boat was still booming through the mist,the waves curling and hissing around us like the erected crestsof enraged serpents.

  "That's his hump. There, there, give it to him!" whispered Starbuck.

  A short rushing sound leaped out of the boat; it was the darted ironof Queequeg. Then all in one welded commotion came an invisiblepush from astern, while forward the boat seemed striking on a ledge;the sail collapsed and exploded; a gush of scalding vapor shot upnear by; something rolled and tumbled like an earthquake beneath us.The whole crew were half suffocated as they were tossedhelter-skelter into the white curdling cream of the squall.Squall, whale, and harpoon had all blended together; and the whale,merely grazed by the iron, escaped.

  Though completely swamped, the boat was nearly unharmed.Swimming round it we picked up the floating oars, and lashingthem across the gunwale, tumbled back to our places.There we sat up to our knees in the sea, the water coveringevery rib and plank, so that to our downward gazing eyesthe suspended craft seemed a coral boat grown up to us fromthe bottom of the ocean.

  The wind increased to a howl; the waves dashed their bucklers together;the whole squall roared, forked, and crackled around uslike a white fire upon the prairie, in which unconsumed,we were burning; immortal in these jaws of death! In vain wehailed the other boats; as well roar to the live coals downthe chimney of a flaming furnace as hail those boats in that storm.Meanwhile the driving scud, rack, and mist, grew darkerwith the shadows of night; no sign of the ship could be seen.The rising sea forbade all attempts to bale out the boat.The oars were useless as propellers, performing now the officeof life-preservers. So, cutting the lashing of the waterproofmatch keg, after many failures Starbuck contrived to ignitethe lamp in the lantern; then stretching it on a waif pole,handed it to Queequeg as the standard-bearer of this forlorn hope.There, then, he sat, holding up that imbecile candle in the heartof that almighty forlornness. There, then, he sat, the signand symbol of a man without faith, hopelessly holding up hopein the midst of despair.

  Wet, drenched through, and shivering cold, despairing of ship or boat,we lifted up our eyes as the dawn came on. The mist still spreadover the sea, the empty lantern lay crushed in the bottom of the boat.Suddenly Queequeg started to his feet, hollowing his hand to his ear.We all heard a faint creaking, as of ropes and yards hitherto muffledby the storm. The sound came nearer and nearer; the thick mists weredimly parted by a huge, vague form. Affrighted, we all sprang intothe sea as the ship at last loomed into view, bearing right down uponus within a distance of not much more than its length.

  Floating on the waves we saw the abandoned boat, as for oneinstant it tossed and gaped beneath the ship's bows like a chipat the base of a cataract; and then the vast hull rolled over it,and it was seen no more till it came up weltering astern.Again we swam for it, were dashed against it by the seas,and were at last taken up and safely landed on board.Ere the squall came close to, the other boats had cut loosefrom their fish and returned to the ship in good time.The ship had given us up, but was still cruising,if haply it might light upon some token of our perishing,--an oar or a lance pole.