الفصل الفصل 16 · The Ship.

In bed we concocted our plans for the morrow. But to my surprise and no

small concern, Queequeg now gave me to understand, that he had been

diligently consulting Yojo—the name of his black little god—and Yojo

had told him two or three times over, and strongly insisted upon it

everyway, that instead of our going together among the whaling-fleet in

harbor, and in concert selecting our craft; instead of this, I say,

Yojo earnestly enjoined that the selection of the ship should rest

wholly with me, inasmuch as Yojo purposed befriending us; and, in order

to do so, had already pitched upon a vessel, which, if left to myself,

I, Ishmael, should infallibly light upon, for all the world as though

it had turned out by chance; and in that vessel I must immediately ship

myself, for the present irrespective of Queequeg.

I have forgotten to mention that, in many things, Queequeg placed great

confidence in the excellence of Yojo’s judgment and surprising forecast

of things; and cherished Yojo with considerable esteem, as a rather

good sort of god, who perhaps meant well enough upon the whole, but in

all cases did not succeed in his benevolent designs.

Now, this plan of Queequeg’s, or rather Yojo’s, touching the selection

of our craft; I did not like that plan at all. I had not a little

relied upon Queequeg’s sagacity to point out the whaler best fitted to

carry us and our fortunes securely. But as all my remonstrances

produced no effect upon Queequeg, I was obliged to acquiesce; and

accordingly prepared to set about this business with a determined

rushing sort of energy and vigor, that should quickly settle that

trifling little affair. Next morning early, leaving Queequeg shut up

with Yojo in our little bedroom—for it seemed that it was some sort of

Lent or Ramadan, or day of fasting, humiliation, and prayer with

Queequeg and Yojo that day; _how_ it was I never could find out, for,

though I applied myself to it several times, I never could master his

liturgies and XXXIX Articles—leaving Queequeg, then, fasting on his

tomahawk pipe, and Yojo warming himself at his sacrificial fire of

shavings, I sallied out among the shipping. After much prolonged

sauntering and many random inquiries, I learnt that there were three

ships up for three-years’ voyages—The Devil-dam, the Tit-bit, and the

Pequod. _Devil-Dam_, I do not know the origin of; _Tit-bit_ is obvious;

_Pequod_, you will no doubt remember, was the name of a celebrated

tribe of Massachusetts Indians; now extinct as the ancient Medes. I

peered and pryed about the Devil-dam; from her, hopped over to the

Tit-bit; and finally, going on board the Pequod, looked around her for

a moment, and then decided that this was the very ship for us.

You may have seen many a quaint craft in your day, for aught I

know;—square-toed luggers; mountainous Japanese junks; butter-box

galliots, and what not; but take my word for it, you never saw such a

rare old craft as this same rare old Pequod. She was a ship of the old

school, rather small if anything; with an old-fashioned claw-footed

look about her. Long seasoned and weather-stained in the typhoons and

calms of all four oceans, her old hull’s complexion was darkened like a

French grenadier’s, who has alike fought in Egypt and Siberia. Her

venerable bows looked bearded. Her masts—cut somewhere on the coast of

Japan, where her original ones were lost overboard in a gale—her masts

stood stiffly up like the spines of the three old kings of Cologne. Her

ancient decks were worn and wrinkled, like the pilgrim-worshipped

flag-stone in Canterbury Cathedral where Becket bled. But to all these

her old antiquities, were added new and marvellous features, pertaining

to the wild business that for more than half a century she had

followed. Old Captain Peleg, many years her chief-mate, before he

commanded another vessel of his own, and now a retired seaman, and one

of the principal owners of the Pequod,—this old Peleg, during the term

of his chief-mateship, had built upon her original grotesqueness, and

inlaid it, all over, with a quaintness both of material and device,

unmatched by anything except it be Thorkill-Hake’s carved buckler or

bedstead. She was apparelled like any barbaric Ethiopian emperor, his

neck heavy with pendants of polished ivory. She was a thing of

trophies. A cannibal of a craft, tricking herself forth in the chased

bones of her enemies. All round, her unpanelled, open bulwarks were

garnished like one continuous jaw, with the long sharp teeth of the

sperm whale, inserted there for pins, to fasten her old hempen thews

and tendons to. Those thews ran not through base blocks of land wood,

but deftly travelled over sheaves of sea-ivory. Scorning a turnstile

wheel at her reverend helm, she sported there a tiller; and that tiller

was in one mass, curiously carved from the long narrow lower jaw of her

hereditary foe. The helmsman who steered by that tiller in a tempest,

felt like the Tartar, when he holds back his fiery steed by clutching

its jaw. A noble craft, but somehow a most melancholy! All noble things

are touched with that.

Now when I looked about the quarter-deck, for some one having

authority, in order to propose myself as a candidate for the voyage, at

first I saw nobody; but I could not well overlook a strange sort of

tent, or rather wigwam, pitched a little behind the main-mast. It

seemed only a temporary erection used in port. It was of a conical

shape, some ten feet high; consisting of the long, huge slabs of limber

black bone taken from the middle and highest part of the jaws of the

right-whale. Planted with their broad ends on the deck, a circle of

these slabs laced together, mutually sloped towards each other, and at

the apex united in a tufted point, where the loose hairy fibres waved

to and fro like the top-knot on some old Pottowottamie Sachem’s head. A

triangular opening faced towards the bows of the ship, so that the

insider commanded a complete view forward.

And half concealed in this queer tenement, I at length found one who by

his aspect seemed to have authority; and who, it being noon, and the

ship’s work suspended, was now enjoying respite from the burden of

command. He was seated on an old-fashioned oaken chair, wriggling all

over with curious carving; and the bottom of which was formed of a

stout interlacing of the same elastic stuff of which the wigwam was

constructed.

There was nothing so very particular, perhaps, about the appearance of

the elderly man I saw; he was brown and brawny, like most old seamen,

and heavily rolled up in blue pilot-cloth, cut in the Quaker style;

only there was a fine and almost microscopic net-work of the minutest

wrinkles interlacing round his eyes, which must have arisen from his

continual sailings in many hard gales, and always looking to

windward;—for this causes the muscles about the eyes to become pursed

together. Such eye-wrinkles are very effectual in a scowl.

“Is this the Captain of the Pequod?” said I, advancing to the door of

the tent.

“Supposing it be the captain of the Pequod, what dost thou want of

him?” he demanded.

“I was thinking of shipping.”

“Thou wast, wast thou? I see thou art no Nantucketer—ever been in a

stove boat?”

“No, Sir, I never have.”

“Dost know nothing at all about whaling, I dare say—eh?

“Nothing, Sir; but I have no doubt I shall soon learn. I’ve been

several voyages in the merchant service, and I think that—”

“Merchant service be damned. Talk not that lingo to me. Dost see that

leg?—I’ll take that leg away from thy stern, if ever thou talkest of

the marchant service to me again. Marchant service indeed! I suppose

now ye feel considerable proud of having served in those marchant

ships. But flukes! man, what makes thee want to go a whaling, eh?—it

looks a little suspicious, don’t it, eh?—Hast not been a pirate, hast

thou?—Didst not rob thy last Captain, didst thou?—Dost not think of

murdering the officers when thou gettest to sea?”

I protested my innocence of these things. I saw that under the mask of

these half humorous innuendoes, this old seaman, as an insulated

Quakerish Nantucketer, was full of his insular prejudices, and rather

distrustful of all aliens, unless they hailed from Cape Cod or the

Vineyard.

“But what takes thee a-whaling? I want to know that before I think of

shipping ye.”

“Well, sir, I want to see what whaling is. I want to see the world.”

“Want to see what whaling is, eh? Have ye clapped eye on Captain Ahab?”

“Who is Captain Ahab, sir?”

“Aye, aye, I thought so. Captain Ahab is the Captain of this ship.”

“I am mistaken then. I thought I was speaking to the Captain himself.”

“Thou art speaking to Captain Peleg—that’s who ye are speaking to,

young man. It belongs to me and Captain Bildad to see the Pequod fitted

out for the voyage, and supplied with all her needs, including crew. We

are part owners and agents. But as I was going to say, if thou wantest

to know what whaling is, as thou tellest ye do, I can put ye in a way

of finding it out before ye bind yourself to it, past backing out. Clap

eye on Captain Ahab, young man, and thou wilt find that he has only one

leg.”

“What do you mean, sir? Was the other one lost by a whale?”

“Lost by a whale! Young man, come nearer to me: it was devoured, chewed

up, crunched by the monstrousest parmacetty that ever chipped a

boat!—ah, ah!”

I was a little alarmed by his energy, perhaps also a little touched at

the hearty grief in his concluding exclamation, but said as calmly as I

could, “What you say is no doubt true enough, sir; but how could I know

there was any peculiar ferocity in that particular whale, though indeed

I might have inferred as much from the simple fact of the accident.”

“Look ye now, young man, thy lungs are a sort of soft, d’ye see; thou

dost not talk shark a bit. _Sure_, ye’ve been to sea before now; sure

of that?”

“Sir,” said I, “I thought I told you that I had been four voyages in

the merchant—”

“Hard down out of that! Mind what I said about the marchant

service—don’t aggravate me—I won’t have it. But let us understand each

other. I have given thee a hint about what whaling is; do ye yet feel

inclined for it?”

“I do, sir.”

“Very good. Now, art thou the man to pitch a harpoon down a live

whale’s throat, and then jump after it? Answer, quick!”

“I am, sir, if it should be positively indispensable to do so; not to

be got rid of, that is; which I don’t take to be the fact.”

“Good again. Now then, thou not only wantest to go a-whaling, to find

out by experience what whaling is, but ye also want to go in order to

see the world? Was not that what ye said? I thought so. Well then, just

step forward there, and take a peep over the weather-bow, and then back

to me and tell me what ye see there.”

For a moment I stood a little puzzled by this curious request, not

knowing exactly how to take it, whether humorously or in earnest. But

concentrating all his crow’s feet into one scowl, Captain Peleg started

me on the errand.

Going forward and glancing over the weather bow, I perceived that the

ship swinging to her anchor with the flood-tide, was now obliquely

pointing towards the open ocean. The prospect was unlimited, but

exceedingly monotonous and forbidding; not the slightest variety that I

could see.

“Well, what’s the report?” said Peleg when I came back; “what did ye

see?”

“Not much,” I replied—“nothing but water; considerable horizon though,

and there’s a squall coming up, I think.”

“Well, what does thou think then of seeing the world? Do ye wish to go

round Cape Horn to see any more of it, eh? Can’t ye see the world where

you stand?”

I was a little staggered, but go a-whaling I must, and I would; and the

Pequod was as good a ship as any—I thought the best—and all this I now

repeated to Peleg. Seeing me so determined, he expressed his

willingness to ship me.

“And thou mayest as well sign the papers right off,” he added—“come

along with ye.” And so saying, he led the way below deck into the

cabin.

Seated on the transom was what seemed to me a most uncommon and

surprising figure. It turned out to be Captain Bildad, who along with

Captain Peleg was one of the largest owners of the vessel; the other

shares, as is sometimes the case in these ports, being held by a crowd

of old annuitants; widows, fatherless children, and chancery wards;

each owning about the value of a timber head, or a foot of plank, or a

nail or two in the ship. People in Nantucket invest their money in

whaling vessels, the same way that you do yours in approved state

stocks bringing in good interest.

Now, Bildad, like Peleg, and indeed many other Nantucketers, was a

Quaker, the island having been originally settled by that sect; and to

this day its inhabitants in general retain in an uncommon measure the

peculiarities of the Quaker, only variously and anomalously modified by

things altogether alien and heterogeneous. For some of these same

Quakers are the most sanguinary of all sailors and whale-hunters. They

are fighting Quakers; they are Quakers with a vengeance.

So that there are instances among them of men, who, named with

Scripture names—a singularly common fashion on the island—and in

childhood naturally imbibing the stately dramatic thee and thou of the

Quaker idiom; still, from the audacious, daring, and boundless

adventure of their subsequent lives, strangely blend with these

unoutgrown peculiarities, a thousand bold dashes of character, not

unworthy a Scandinavian sea-king, or a poetical Pagan Roman. And when

these things unite in a man of greatly superior natural force, with a

globular brain and a ponderous heart; who has also by the stillness and

seclusion of many long night-watches in the remotest waters, and

beneath constellations never seen here at the north, been led to think

untraditionally and independently; receiving all nature’s sweet or

savage impressions fresh from her own virgin voluntary and confiding

breast, and thereby chiefly, but with some help from accidental

advantages, to learn a bold and nervous lofty language—that man makes

one in a whole nation’s census—a mighty pageant creature, formed for

noble tragedies. Nor will it at all detract from him, dramatically

regarded, if either by birth or other circumstances, he have what seems

a half wilful overruling morbidness at the bottom of his nature. For

all men tragically great are made so through a certain morbidness. Be

sure of this, O young ambition, all mortal greatness is but disease.

But, as yet we have not to do with such an one, but with quite another;

and still a man, who, if indeed peculiar, it only results again from

another phase of the Quaker, modified by individual circumstances.

Like Captain Peleg, Captain Bildad was a well-to-do, retired whaleman.

But unlike Captain Peleg—who cared not a rush for what are called

serious things, and indeed deemed those self-same serious things the

veriest of all trifles—Captain Bildad had not only been originally

educated according to the strictest sect of Nantucket Quakerism, but

all his subsequent ocean life, and the sight of many unclad, lovely

island creatures, round the Horn—all that had not moved this native

born Quaker one single jot, had not so much as altered one angle of his

vest. Still, for all this immutableness, was there some lack of common

consistency about worthy Captain Bildad. Though refusing, from

conscientious scruples, to bear arms against land invaders, yet himself

had illimitably invaded the Atlantic and Pacific; and though a sworn

foe to human bloodshed, yet had he in his straight-bodied coat, spilled

tuns upon tuns of leviathan gore. How now in the contemplative evening

of his days, the pious Bildad reconciled these things in the

reminiscence, I do not know; but it did not seem to concern him much,

and very probably he had long since come to the sage and sensible

conclusion that a man’s religion is one thing, and this practical world

quite another. This world pays dividends. Rising from a little

cabin-boy in short clothes of the drabbest drab, to a harpooneer in a

broad shad-bellied waistcoat; from that becoming boat-header,

chief-mate, and captain, and finally a ship owner; Bildad, as I hinted

before, had concluded his adventurous career by wholly retiring from

active life at the goodly age of sixty, and dedicating his remaining

days to the quiet receiving of his well-earned income.

Now, Bildad, I am sorry to say, had the reputation of being an

incorrigible old hunks, and in his sea-going days, a bitter, hard

task-master. They told me in Nantucket, though it certainly seems a

curious story, that when he sailed the old Categut whaleman, his crew,

upon arriving home, were mostly all carried ashore to the hospital,

sore exhausted and worn out. For a pious man, especially for a Quaker,

he was certainly rather hard-hearted, to say the least. He never used

to swear, though, at his men, they said; but somehow he got an

inordinate quantity of cruel, unmitigated hard work out of them. When

Bildad was a chief-mate, to have his drab-coloured eye intently looking

at you, made you feel completely nervous, till you could clutch

something—a hammer or a marling-spike, and go to work like mad, at

something or other, never mind what. Indolence and idleness perished

before him. His own person was the exact embodiment of his utilitarian

character. On his long, gaunt body, he carried no spare flesh, no

superfluous beard, his chin having a soft, economical nap to it, like

the worn nap of his broad-brimmed hat.

Such, then, was the person that I saw seated on the transom when I

followed Captain Peleg down into the cabin. The space between the decks

was small; and there, bolt-upright, sat old Bildad, who always sat so,

and never leaned, and this to save his coat tails. His broad-brim was

placed beside him; his legs were stiffly crossed; his drab vesture was

buttoned up to his chin; and spectacles on nose, he seemed absorbed in

reading from a ponderous volume.

“Bildad,” cried Captain Peleg, “at it again, Bildad, eh? Ye have been

studying those Scriptures, now, for the last thirty years, to my

certain knowledge. How far ye got, Bildad?”

As if long habituated to such profane talk from his old shipmate,

Bildad, without noticing his present irreverence, quietly looked up,

and seeing me, glanced again inquiringly towards Peleg.

“He says he’s our man, Bildad,” said Peleg, “he wants to ship.”

“Dost thee?” said Bildad, in a hollow tone, and turning round to me.

“I _dost_,” said I unconsciously, he was so intense a Quaker.

“What do ye think of him, Bildad?” said Peleg.

“He’ll do,” said Bildad, eyeing me, and then went on spelling away at

his book in a mumbling tone quite audible.

I thought him the queerest old Quaker I ever saw, especially as Peleg,

his friend and old shipmate, seemed such a blusterer. But I said

nothing, only looking round me sharply. Peleg now threw open a chest,

and drawing forth the ship’s articles, placed pen and ink before him,

and seated himself at a little table. I began to think it was high time

to settle with myself at what terms I would be willing to engage for

the voyage. I was already aware that in the whaling business they paid

no wages; but all hands, including the captain, received certain shares

of the profits called _lays_, and that these lays were proportioned to

the degree of importance pertaining to the respective duties of the

ship’s company. I was also aware that being a green hand at whaling, my

own lay would not be very large; but considering that I was used to the

sea, could steer a ship, splice a rope, and all that, I made no doubt

that from all I had heard I should be offered at least the 275th

lay—that is, the 275th part of the clear net proceeds of the voyage,

whatever that might eventually amount to. And though the 275th lay was

what they call a rather _long lay_, yet it was better than nothing; and

if we had a lucky voyage, might pretty nearly pay for the clothing I

would wear out on it, not to speak of my three years’ beef and board,

for which I would not have to pay one stiver.

It might be thought that this was a poor way to accumulate a princely

fortune—and so it was, a very poor way indeed. But I am one of those

that never take on about princely fortunes, and am quite content if the

world is ready to board and lodge me, while I am putting up at this

grim sign of the Thunder Cloud. Upon the whole, I thought that the

275th lay would be about the fair thing, but would not have been

surprised had I been offered the 200th, considering I was of a

broad-shouldered make.

But one thing, nevertheless, that made me a little distrustful about

receiving a generous share of the profits was this: Ashore, I had heard

something of both Captain Peleg and his unaccountable old crony Bildad;

how that they being the principal proprietors of the Pequod, therefore

the other and more inconsiderable and scattered owners, left nearly the

whole management of the ship’s affairs to these two. And I did not know

but what the stingy old Bildad might have a mighty deal to say about

shipping hands, especially as I now found him on board the Pequod,

quite at home there in the cabin, and reading his Bible as if at his

own fireside. Now while Peleg was vainly trying to mend a pen with his

jack-knife, old Bildad, to my no small surprise, considering that he

was such an interested party in these proceedings; Bildad never heeded

us, but went on mumbling to himself out of his book, “_Lay_ not up for

yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth—”

“Well, Captain Bildad,” interrupted Peleg, “what d’ye say, what lay

shall we give this young man?”

“Thou knowest best,” was the sepulchral reply, “the seven hundred and

seventy-seventh wouldn’t be too much, would it?—‘where moth and rust do

corrupt, but _lay_—’”

_Lay_, indeed, thought I, and such a lay! the seven hundred and

seventy-seventh! Well, old Bildad, you are determined that I, for one,

shall not _lay_ up many _lays_ here below, where moth and rust do

corrupt. It was an exceedingly _long lay_ that, indeed; and though from

the magnitude of the figure it might at first deceive a landsman, yet

the slightest consideration will show that though seven hundred and

seventy-seven is a pretty large number, yet, when you come to make a

_teenth_ of it, you will then see, I say, that the seven hundred and

seventy-seventh part of a farthing is a good deal less than seven

hundred and seventy-seven gold doubloons; and so I thought at the time.

“Why, blast your eyes, Bildad,” cried Peleg, “thou dost not want to

swindle this young man! he must have more than that.”

“Seven hundred and seventy-seventh,” again said Bildad, without lifting

his eyes; and then went on mumbling—“for where your treasure is, there

will your heart be also.”

“I am going to put him down for the three hundredth,” said Peleg, “do

ye hear that, Bildad! The three hundredth lay, I say.”

Bildad laid down his book, and turning solemnly towards him said,

“Captain Peleg, thou hast a generous heart; but thou must consider the

duty thou owest to the other owners of this ship—widows and orphans,

many of them—and that if we too abundantly reward the labors of this

young man, we may be taking the bread from those widows and those

orphans. The seven hundred and seventy-seventh lay, Captain Peleg.”

“Thou Bildad!” roared Peleg, starting up and clattering about the

cabin. “Blast ye, Captain Bildad, if I had followed thy advice in these

matters, I would afore now had a conscience to lug about that would be

heavy enough to founder the largest ship that ever sailed round Cape

Horn.”

“Captain Peleg,” said Bildad steadily, “thy conscience may be drawing

ten inches of water, or ten fathoms, I can’t tell; but as thou art

still an impenitent man, Captain Peleg, I greatly fear lest thy

conscience be but a leaky one; and will in the end sink thee foundering

down to the fiery pit, Captain Peleg.”

“Fiery pit! fiery pit! ye insult me, man; past all natural bearing, ye

insult me. It’s an all-fired outrage to tell any human creature that

he’s bound to hell. Flukes and flames! Bildad, say that again to me,

and start my soul-bolts, but I’ll—I’ll—yes, I’ll swallow a live goat

with all his hair and horns on. Out of the cabin, ye canting,

drab-coloured son of a wooden gun—a straight wake with ye!”

As he thundered out this he made a rush at Bildad, but with a

marvellous oblique, sliding celerity, Bildad for that time eluded him.

Alarmed at this terrible outburst between the two principal and

responsible owners of the ship, and feeling half a mind to give up all

idea of sailing in a vessel so questionably owned and temporarily

commanded, I stepped aside from the door to give egress to Bildad, who,

I made no doubt, was all eagerness to vanish from before the awakened

wrath of Peleg. But to my astonishment, he sat down again on the

transom very quietly, and seemed to have not the slightest intention of

withdrawing. He seemed quite used to impenitent Peleg and his ways. As

for Peleg, after letting off his rage as he had, there seemed no more

left in him, and he, too, sat down like a lamb, though he twitched a

little as if still nervously agitated. “Whew!” he whistled at last—“the

squall’s gone off to leeward, I think. Bildad, thou used to be good at

sharpening a lance, mend that pen, will ye. My jack-knife here needs

the grindstone. That’s he; thank ye, Bildad. Now then, my young man,

Ishmael’s thy name, didn’t ye say? Well then, down ye go here, Ishmael,

for the three hundredth lay.”

“Captain Peleg,” said I, “I have a friend with me who wants to ship

too—shall I bring him down to-morrow?”

“To be sure,” said Peleg. “Fetch him along, and we’ll look at him.”

“What lay does he want?” groaned Bildad, glancing up from the book in

which he had again been burying himself.

“Oh! never thee mind about that, Bildad,” said Peleg. “Has he ever

whaled it any?” turning to me.

“Killed more whales than I can count, Captain Peleg.”

“Well, bring him along then.”

And, after signing the papers, off I went; nothing doubting but that I

had done a good morning’s work, and that the Pequod was the identical

ship that Yojo had provided to carry Queequeg and me round the Cape.

But I had not proceeded far, when I began to bethink me that the

Captain with whom I was to sail yet remained unseen by me; though,

indeed, in many cases, a whale-ship will be completely fitted out, and

receive all her crew on board, ere the captain makes himself visible by

arriving to take command; for sometimes these voyages are so prolonged,

and the shore intervals at home so exceedingly brief, that if the

captain have a family, or any absorbing concernment of that sort, he

does not trouble himself much about his ship in port, but leaves her to

the owners till all is ready for sea. However, it is always as well to

have a look at him before irrevocably committing yourself into his

hands. Turning back I accosted Captain Peleg, inquiring where Captain

Ahab was to be found.

“And what dost thou want of Captain Ahab? It’s all right enough; thou

art shipped.”

“Yes, but I should like to see him.”

“But I don’t think thou wilt be able to at present. I don’t know

exactly what’s the matter with him; but he keeps close inside the

house; a sort of sick, and yet he don’t look so. In fact, he ain’t

sick; but no, he isn’t well either. Any how, young man, he won’t always

see me, so I don’t suppose he will thee. He’s a queer man, Captain

Ahab—so some think—but a good one. Oh, thou’lt like him well enough; no

fear, no fear. He’s a grand, ungodly, god-like man, Captain Ahab;

doesn’t speak much; but, when he does speak, then you may well listen.

Mark ye, be forewarned; Ahab’s above the common; Ahab’s been in

colleges, as well as ’mong the cannibals; been used to deeper wonders

than the waves; fixed his fiery lance in mightier, stranger foes than

whales. His lance! aye, the keenest and the surest that out of all our

isle! Oh! he ain’t Captain Bildad; no, and he ain’t Captain Peleg;

_he’s Ahab_, boy; and Ahab of old, thou knowest, was a crowned king!”

“And a very vile one. When that wicked king was slain, the dogs, did

they not lick his blood?”

“Come hither to me—hither, hither,” said Peleg, with a significance in

his eye that almost startled me. “Look ye, lad; never say that on board

the Pequod. Never say it anywhere. Captain Ahab did not name himself.

’Twas a foolish, ignorant whim of his crazy, widowed mother, who died

when he was only a twelvemonth old. And yet the old squaw Tistig, at

Gayhead, said that the name would somehow prove prophetic. And,

perhaps, other fools like her may tell thee the same. I wish to warn

thee. It’s a lie. I know Captain Ahab well; I’ve sailed with him as

mate years ago; I know what he is—a good man—not a pious, good man,

like Bildad, but a swearing good man—something like me—only there’s a

good deal more of him. Aye, aye, I know that he was never very jolly;

and I know that on the passage home, he was a little out of his mind

for a spell; but it was the sharp shooting pains in his bleeding stump

that brought that about, as any one might see. I know, too, that ever

since he lost his leg last voyage by that accursed whale, he’s been a

kind of moody—desperate moody, and savage sometimes; but that will all

pass off. And once for all, let me tell thee and assure thee, young

man, it’s better to sail with a moody good captain than a laughing bad

one. So good-bye to thee—and wrong not Captain Ahab, because he happens

to have a wicked name. Besides, my boy, he has a wife—not three voyages

wedded—a sweet, resigned girl. Think of that; by that sweet girl that

old man has a child: hold ye then there can be any utter, hopeless harm

in Ahab? No, no, my lad; stricken, blasted, if he be, Ahab has his

humanities!”

As I walked away, I was full of thoughtfulness; what had been

incidentally revealed to me of Captain Ahab, filled me with a certain

wild vagueness of painfulness concerning him. And somehow, at the time,

I felt a sympathy and a sorrow for him, but for I don’t know what,

unless it was the cruel loss of his leg. And yet I also felt a strange

awe of him; but that sort of awe, which I cannot at all describe, was

not exactly awe; I do not know what it was. But I felt it; and it did

not disincline me towards him; though I felt impatience at what seemed

like mystery in him, so imperfectly as he was known to me then.

However, my thoughts were at length carried in other directions, so

that for the present dark Ahab slipped my mind.