الفصل الفصل 128 · The Pequod Meets The Rachel.

Next day, a large ship, the Rachel, was descried, bearing directly down

upon the Pequod, all her spars thickly clustering with men. At the time

the Pequod was making good speed through the water; but as the

broad-winged windward stranger shot nigh to her, the boastful sails all

fell together as blank bladders that are burst, and all life fled from

the smitten hull.

“Bad news; she brings bad news,” muttered the old Manxman. But ere her

commander, who, with trumpet to mouth, stood up in his boat; ere he

could hopefully hail, Ahab’s voice was heard.

“Hast seen the White Whale?”

“Aye, yesterday. Have ye seen a whale-boat adrift?”

Throttling his joy, Ahab negatively answered this unexpected question;

and would then have fain boarded the stranger, when the stranger

captain himself, having stopped his vessel’s way, was seen descending

her side. A few keen pulls, and his boat-hook soon clinched the

Pequod’s main-chains, and he sprang to the deck. Immediately he was

recognised by Ahab for a Nantucketer he knew. But no formal salutation

was exchanged.

“Where was he?—not killed!—not killed!” cried Ahab, closely advancing.

“How was it?”

It seemed that somewhat late on the afternoon of the day previous,

while three of the stranger’s boats were engaged with a shoal of

whales, which had led them some four or five miles from the ship; and

while they were yet in swift chase to windward, the white hump and head

of Moby Dick had suddenly loomed up out of the water, not very far to

leeward; whereupon, the fourth rigged boat—a reserved one—had been

instantly lowered in chase. After a keen sail before the wind, this

fourth boat—the swiftest keeled of all—seemed to have succeeded in

fastening—at least, as well as the man at the mast-head could tell

anything about it. In the distance he saw the diminished dotted boat;

and then a swift gleam of bubbling white water; and after that nothing

more; whence it was concluded that the stricken whale must have

indefinitely run away with his pursuers, as often happens. There was

some apprehension, but no positive alarm, as yet. The recall signals

were placed in the rigging; darkness came on; and forced to pick up her

three far to windward boats—ere going in quest of the fourth one in the

precisely opposite direction—the ship had not only been necessitated to

leave that boat to its fate till near midnight, but, for the time, to

increase her distance from it. But the rest of her crew being at last

safe aboard, she crowded all sail—stunsail on stunsail—after the

missing boat; kindling a fire in her try-pots for a beacon; and every

other man aloft on the look-out. But though when she had thus sailed a

sufficient distance to gain the presumed place of the absent ones when

last seen; though she then paused to lower her spare boats to pull all

around her; and not finding anything, had again dashed on; again

paused, and lowered her boats; and though she had thus continued doing

till daylight; yet not the least glimpse of the missing keel had been

seen.

The story told, the stranger Captain immediately went on to reveal his

object in boarding the Pequod. He desired that ship to unite with his

own in the search; by sailing over the sea some four or five miles

apart, on parallel lines, and so sweeping a double horizon, as it were.

“I will wager something now,” whispered Stubb to Flask, “that some one

in that missing boat wore off that Captain’s best coat; mayhap, his

watch—he’s so cursed anxious to get it back. Who ever heard of two

pious whale-ships cruising after one missing whale-boat in the height

of the whaling season? See, Flask, only see how pale he looks—pale in

the very buttons of his eyes—look—it wasn’t the coat—it must have been

the—”

“My boy, my own boy is among them. For God’s sake—I beg, I

conjure”—here exclaimed the stranger Captain to Ahab, who thus far had

but icily received his petition. “For eight-and-forty hours let me

charter your ship—I will gladly pay for it, and roundly pay for it—if

there be no other way—for eight-and-forty hours only—only that—you

must, oh, you must, and you _shall_ do this thing.”

“His son!” cried Stubb, “oh, it’s his son he’s lost! I take back the

coat and watch—what says Ahab? We must save that boy.”

“He’s drowned with the rest on ’em, last night,” said the old Manx

sailor standing behind them; “I heard; all of ye heard their spirits.”

Now, as it shortly turned out, what made this incident of the Rachel’s

the more melancholy, was the circumstance, that not only was one of the

Captain’s sons among the number of the missing boat’s crew; but among

the number of the other boat’s crews, at the same time, but on the

other hand, separated from the ship during the dark vicissitudes of the

chase, there had been still another son; as that for a time, the

wretched father was plunged to the bottom of the cruellest perplexity;

which was only solved for him by his chief mate’s instinctively

adopting the ordinary procedure of a whale-ship in such emergencies,

that is, when placed between jeopardized but divided boats, always to

pick up the majority first. But the captain, for some unknown

constitutional reason, had refrained from mentioning all this, and not

till forced to it by Ahab’s iciness did he allude to his one yet

missing boy; a little lad, but twelve years old, whose father with the

earnest but unmisgiving hardihood of a Nantucketer’s paternal love, had

thus early sought to initiate him in the perils and wonders of a

vocation almost immemorially the destiny of all his race. Nor does it

unfrequently occur, that Nantucket captains will send a son of such

tender age away from them, for a protracted three or four years’ voyage

in some other ship than their own; so that their first knowledge of a

whaleman’s career shall be unenervated by any chance display of a

father’s natural but untimely partiality, or undue apprehensiveness and

concern.

Meantime, now the stranger was still beseeching his poor boon of Ahab;

and Ahab still stood like an anvil, receiving every shock, but without

the least quivering of his own.

“I will not go,” said the stranger, “till you say _aye_ to me. Do to me

as you would have me do to you in the like case. For _you_ too have a

boy, Captain Ahab—though but a child, and nestling safely at home now—a

child of your old age too—Yes, yes, you relent; I see it—run, run, men,

now, and stand by to square in the yards.”

“Avast,” cried Ahab—“touch not a rope-yarn”; then in a voice that

prolongingly moulded every word—“Captain Gardiner, I will not do it.

Even now I lose time. Good-bye, good-bye. God bless ye, man, and may I

forgive myself, but I must go. Mr. Starbuck, look at the binnacle

watch, and in three minutes from this present instant warn off all

strangers: then brace forward again, and let the ship sail as before.”

Hurriedly turning, with averted face, he descended into his cabin,

leaving the strange captain transfixed at this unconditional and utter

rejection of his so earnest suit. But starting from his enchantment,

Gardiner silently hurried to the side; more fell than stepped into his

boat, and returned to his ship.

Soon the two ships diverged their wakes; and long as the strange vessel

was in view, she was seen to yaw hither and thither at every dark spot,

however small, on the sea. This way and that her yards were swung

round; starboard and larboard, she continued to tack; now she beat

against a head sea; and again it pushed her before it; while all the

while, her masts and yards were thickly clustered with men, as three

tall cherry trees, when the boys are cherrying among the boughs.

But by her still halting course and winding, woeful way, you plainly

saw that this ship that so wept with spray, still remained without

comfort. She was Rachel, weeping for her children, because they were

not.