Moby Dick; Or, The Whale

by Herman Melville

  CHAPTER 120

  The Deck Toward the End of the First Night Watch

  Ahab standing by the helm. Starbuck approaching him.

  We must send down the main-top-sail yard, sir. The band is workingloose and the lee lift is half-stranded. Shall I strike it, sir?"

  "Strike nothing; lash it. If I had sky-sail poles, I'd swaythem up now."

  "Sir!--in God's name!--sir?"

  "Well."

  "The anchors are working, sir. Shall I get them inboard?"

  "Strike nothing, and stir nothing but lash everything. The wind rises,but it has not got up to my table-lands yet. Quick, and see to it.--By masts and keels! he takes me for the hunchbacked skipper of somecoasting smack. Send down my main-top-sail yard! Ho, gluepots!Loftiest trucks were made for wildest winds, and this brain-truckof mine now sails amid the cloud-scud. Shall I strike that?Oh, none but cowards send down their brain-trucks in tempest time.What a hooroosh aloft there! I would e'en take it for sublime,did I not know that the colic is a noisy malady. Oh, take medicine,take medicine!"