Chapter 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-captains usually 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 his old

rounds, upon planks so familiar to his tread, that they were all over

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-prints of 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 turn that 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 him pecks

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 purpose in his aspect.

It drew near the close of day. Suddenly he came to a halt by the

bulwarks, and inserting his bone leg into the auger-hole there, and

with one hand grasping a shroud, he ordered Starbuck to send everybody

aft.

“Sir!” said the mate, astonished at an order seldom or never given on

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 curious and not

wholly unapprehensive faces, were eyeing him, for he looked not unlike

the weather horizon when a storm is coming up, Ahab, after rapidly

glancing over the bulwarks, and then darting his eyes among the crew,

started from his standpoint; and as though not 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 Stubb cautiously whispered to Flask, that Ahab must have

summoned them 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 score of clubbed

voices.

“Good!” cried Ahab, with a wild approval in his tones; observing the

hearty animation into which his unexpected question had 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 excited at such seemingly purposeless questions.

But, they were all eagerness again, as Ahab, now half-revolving in his

pivot-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 a white

whale. Look ye! d’ye see this Spanish ounce of gold?”—holding up a

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 was meanwhile lowly

humming to himself, producing a sound so strangely muffled and

inarticulate that it seemed the mechanical humming of the wheels of his

vitality in him.

Receiving the top-maul from Starbuck, he advanced towards the main-mast

with the hammer uplifted in one hand, exhibiting the gold with the

other, and with a high raised voice exclaiming: “Whosoever of ye raises

me a white-headed whale with a wrinkled brow and a crooked jaw;

whosoever of ye raises me that white-headed whale, with three holes

punctured in his starboard fluke—look ye, whosoever of ye raises me

that same white whale, he shall have this gold ounce, my boys!”

“Huzza! huzza!” cried the seamen, as with swinging tarpaulins they

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 even

more intense interest and surprise than the rest, and at the mention of

the wrinkled brow and crooked jaw they had started as if each was

separately touched by some specific recollection.

“Captain Ahab,” said Tashtego, “that white whale must be the same that

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, three—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 hand round and

round as though uncorking a bottle—“like him—him—”

“Corkscrew!” cried Ahab, “aye, Queequeg, the harpoons lie all twisted

and wrenched in him; aye, Daggoo, his spout is a big one, like a whole

shock of wheat, and white as a pile of 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 thus far

been eyeing his superior with increasing surprise, but at last seemed

struck with a thought which somewhat explained all the wonder. “Captain

Ahab, I have heard of Moby Dick—but it was not Moby Dick that 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 of a heart-stricken moose;

“Aye, aye! it was that accursed white whale that 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 flames before 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 all sides of earth, till he spouts black blood and rolls fin

out. What say ye, men, will ye splice hands on it, now? I think ye do

look brave.”

“Aye, aye!” shouted the harpooneers and seamen, running closer to 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 not chase 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 be the measurer, man, and the

accountants have computed their great 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 it

rings most vast, but hollow.”

“Vengeance on a dumb brute!” cried Starbuck, “that simply smote thee

from 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 reasoning thing puts forth

the mouldings of its features from behind the 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 inscrutable

thing 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 ever a 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 intolerable than fiends’ glarings is

a doltish stare! So, so; thou reddenest and 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

Turkish cheeks 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 this

matter 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 feat for Starbuck. What is it more? From

this one poor hunt, then, the best lance out of all Nantucket, surely

he will not hang 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 has inhaled it in

his lungs. Starbuck now is mine; cannot oppose me 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 low laugh from the

hold; nor yet the presaging vibrations of the winds in the cordage; nor

yet the hollow flap of the sails against the masts, as for a moment

their hearts sank in. For again Starbuck’s downcast eyes lighted up

with the stubbornness of 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 verifications of the foregoing things

within. For with little external to 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 them before 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 prairie wolves meet the eye of their

leader, ere he rushes on at their head in the trail of the bison; but,

alas! only to fall into the hidden snare of the Indian.

“Drink and pass!” he cried, handing the heavy charged flagon 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 there

with your irons; and ye, stout mariners, ring me in, that I may in some

sort 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, wer’t not

thou St. 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 grasped the three

level, radiating lances at their crossed centre; while so doing,

suddenly and nervously twitched them; meanwhile, glancing intently from

Starbuck to Stubb; from Stubb to Flask. It seemed as though, by some

nameless, interior volition, he would fain have shocked into them the

same fiery emotion accumulated 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 of Starbuck fell downright.

“In vain!” cried Ahab; “but, maybe, ’tis well. For did ye three but

once take the full-forced shock, then mine own electric thing, _that_

had perhaps expired 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 stood with the

detached iron part of their harpoons, some three feet long, held, barbs

up, before him.

“Stab me not with that keen steel! Cant them; cant them over! 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 officer to the other, he brimmed the harpoon

sockets with the fiery waters from the pewter.

“Now, three to three, ye stand. Commend the murderous chalices! Bestow

them, ye who are now made parties to this indissoluble 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 Dick to 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.