Chapter Chapter 66 · The Shark Massacre.

When in the Southern Fishery, a captured Sperm Whale, after long and

weary toil, is brought alongside late at night, it is not, as a general

thing at least, customary to proceed at once to the business of cutting

him in. For that business is an exceedingly laborious one; is not very

soon completed; and requires all hands to set about it. Therefore, the

common usage is to take in all sail; lash the helm a’lee; and then send

every one below to his hammock till daylight, with the reservation

that, until that time, anchor-watches shall be kept; that is, two and

two for an hour, each couple, the crew in rotation shall mount the deck

to see that all goes well.

But sometimes, especially upon the Line in the Pacific, this plan will

not answer at all; because such incalculable hosts of sharks gather

round the moored carcase, that were he left so for six hours, say, on a

stretch, little more than the skeleton would be visible by morning. In

most other parts of the ocean, however, where these fish do not so

largely abound, their wondrous voracity can be at times considerably

diminished, by vigorously stirring them up with sharp whaling-spades, a

procedure notwithstanding, which, in some instances, only seems to

tickle them into still greater activity. But it was not thus in the

present case with the Pequod’s sharks; though, to be sure, any man

unaccustomed to such sights, to have looked over her side that night,

would have almost thought the whole round sea was one huge cheese, and

those sharks the maggots in it.

Nevertheless, upon Stubb setting the anchor-watch after his supper was

concluded; and when, accordingly, Queequeg and a forecastle seaman came

on deck, no small excitement was created among the sharks; for

immediately suspending the cutting stages over the side, and lowering

three lanterns, so that they cast long gleams of light over the turbid

sea, these two mariners, darting their long whaling-spades, kept up an

incessant murdering of the sharks,* by striking the keen steel deep

into their skulls, seemingly their only vital part. But in the foamy

confusion of their mixed and struggling hosts, the marksmen could not

always hit their mark; and this brought about new revelations of the

incredible ferocity of the foe. They viciously snapped, not only at

each other’s disembowelments, but like flexible bows, bent round, and

bit their own; till those entrails seemed swallowed over and over again

by the same mouth, to be oppositely voided by the gaping wound. Nor was

this all. It was unsafe to meddle with the corpses and ghosts of these

creatures. A sort of generic or Pantheistic vitality seemed to lurk in

their very joints and bones, after what might be called the individual

life had departed. Killed and hoisted on deck for the sake of his skin,

one of these sharks almost took poor Queequeg’s hand off, when he tried

to shut down the dead lid of his murderous jaw.

*The whaling-spade used for cutting-in is made of the very best steel;

is about the bigness of a man’s spread hand; and in general shape,

corresponds to the garden implement after which it is named; only its

sides are perfectly flat, and its upper end considerably narrower than

the lower. This weapon is always kept as sharp as possible; and when

being used is occasionally honed, just like a razor. In its socket, a

stiff pole, from twenty to thirty feet long, is inserted for a handle.

“Queequeg no care what god made him shark,” said the savage,

agonizingly lifting his hand up and down; “wedder Fejee god or

Nantucket god; but de god wat made shark must be one dam Ingin.”