Kabanata Kabanata 59 · Squid.

Slowly wading through the meadows of brit, the Pequod still held on her

way north-eastward towards the island of Java; a gentle air impelling

her keel, so that in the surrounding serenity her three tall tapering

masts mildly waved to that languid breeze, as three mild palms on a

plain. And still, at wide intervals in the silvery night, the lonely,

alluring jet would be seen.

But one transparent blue morning, when a stillness almost preternatural

spread over the sea, however unattended with any stagnant calm; when

the long burnished sun-glade on the waters seemed a golden finger laid

across them, enjoining some secrecy; when the slippered waves whispered

together as they softly ran on; in this profound hush of the visible

sphere a strange spectre was seen by Daggoo from the main-mast-head.

In the distance, a great white mass lazily rose, and rising higher and

higher, and disentangling itself from the azure, at last gleamed before

our prow like a snow-slide, new slid from the hills. Thus glistening

for a moment, as slowly it subsided, and sank. Then once more arose,

and silently gleamed. It seemed not a whale; and yet is this Moby Dick?

thought Daggoo. Again the phantom went down, but on re-appearing once

more, with a stiletto-like cry that startled every man from his nod,

the negro yelled out—“There! there again! there she breaches! right

ahead! The White Whale, the White Whale!”

Upon this, the seamen rushed to the yard-arms, as in swarming-time the

bees rush to the boughs. Bare-headed in the sultry sun, Ahab stood on

the bowsprit, and with one hand pushed far behind in readiness to wave

his orders to the helmsman, cast his eager glance in the direction

indicated aloft by the outstretched motionless arm of Daggoo.

Whether the flitting attendance of the one still and solitary jet had

gradually worked upon Ahab, so that he was now prepared to connect the

ideas of mildness and repose with the first sight of the particular

whale he pursued; however this was, or whether his eagerness betrayed

him; whichever way it might have been, no sooner did he distinctly

perceive the white mass, than with a quick intensity he instantly gave

orders for lowering.

The four boats were soon on the water; Ahab’s in advance, and all

swiftly pulling towards their prey. Soon it went down, and while, with

oars suspended, we were awaiting its reappearance, lo! in the same spot

where it sank, once more it slowly rose. Almost forgetting for the

moment all thoughts of Moby Dick, we now gazed at the most wondrous

phenomenon which the secret seas have hitherto revealed to mankind. A

vast pulpy mass, furlongs in length and breadth, of a glancing

cream-colour, lay floating on the water, innumerable long arms

radiating from its centre, and curling and twisting like a nest of

anacondas, as if blindly to clutch at any hapless object within reach.

No perceptible face or front did it have; no conceivable token of

either sensation or instinct; but undulated there on the billows, an

unearthly, formless, chance-like apparition of life.

As with a low sucking sound it slowly disappeared again, Starbuck still

gazing at the agitated waters where it had sunk, with a wild voice

exclaimed—“Almost rather had I seen Moby Dick and fought him, than to

have seen thee, thou white ghost!”

“What was it, Sir?” said Flask.

“The great live squid, which, they say, few whale-ships ever beheld,

and returned to their ports to tell of it.”

But Ahab said nothing; turning his boat, he sailed back to the vessel;

the rest as silently following.

Whatever superstitions the sperm whalemen in general have connected

with the sight of this object, certain it is, that a glimpse of it

being so very unusual, that circumstance has gone far to invest it with

portentousness. So rarely is it beheld, that though one and all of them

declare it to be the largest animated thing in the ocean, yet very few

of them have any but the most vague ideas concerning its true nature

and form; notwithstanding, they believe it to furnish to the sperm

whale his only food. For though other species of whales find their food

above water, and may be seen by man in the act of feeding, the

spermaceti whale obtains his whole food in unknown zones below the

surface; and only by inference is it that any one can tell of what,

precisely, that food consists. At times, when closely pursued, he will

disgorge what are supposed to be the detached arms of the squid; some

of them thus exhibited exceeding twenty and thirty feet in length. They

fancy that the monster to which these arms belonged ordinarily clings

by them to the bed of the ocean; and that the sperm whale, unlike other

species, is supplied with teeth in order to attack and tear it.

There seems some ground to imagine that the great Kraken of Bishop

Pontoppodan may ultimately resolve itself into Squid. The manner in

which the Bishop describes it, as alternately rising and sinking, with

some other particulars he narrates, in all this the two correspond. But

much abatement is necessary with respect to the incredible bulk he

assigns it.

By some naturalists who have vaguely heard rumors of the mysterious

creature, here spoken of, it is included among the class of

cuttle-fish, to which, indeed, in certain external respects it would

seem to belong, but only as the Anak of the tribe.