So, almost every twenty-four hours, when the watches of the night were set, and the band on deck sentinelled the slumbers of the band below; and when if a rope was to be hauled upon the forecastle, the sailors flung it not rudely down, as by day, but with some cautiousness dropt it to its place for fear of disturbing their slumbering shipmates; when this sort of steady quietude would begin to prevail, habitually, the silent steersman would watch the cabin-scuttle; and ere long the old man would emerge, gripping at the iron banister, to help his crippled way. Some considering touch of humanity was in him; for at times like these, he usually abstained from patrolling the quarter-deck; because to his wearied mates, seeking repose within six inches of his ivory heel, such would have been the reverberating crack and din of that bony step, that their dreams would have been on the crunching teeth of sharks. But once, the mood was on him too deep for common regardings; and as with heavy, lumber-like pace he was measuring the ship from taffrail to mainmast, Stubb, the second mate, came up from below, with a certain unassured, deprecating humorousness, hinted that if Captain Ahab was pleased to walk the planks, then, no one could say nay; but there might be some way of muffling the noise; hinting something indistinctly and hesitatingly about a globe of tow, and the insertion into it, of the ivory heel. Ah! Stubb, thou didst not know Ahab then.
“Am I a cannon-ball, Stubb,” said Ahab, “that thou wouldst wad me that fashion? But go thy ways; I had forgot. Below to thy nightly grave; where such as ye sleep between shrouds, to use ye to the filling one at last.—Down, dog, and kennel!”
Starting at the unforseen concluding exclamation of the so suddenly scornful old man, Stubb was speechless a moment; then said excitedly, “I am not used to be spoken to that way, sir; I do but less than half like it, sir.”
“Avast! gritted Ahab between his set teeth, and violently moving away, as if to avoid some passionate temptation.
“No, sir; not yet,” said Stubb, emboldened, “I will not tamely be called a dog, sir.”
“Then be called ten times a donkey, and a mule, and an ass, and begone, or I’ll clear the world of thee!” As he said this, Ahab advanced upon him with such overbearing terrors in his aspect, that Stubb involuntarily retreated.
“I was never served so before without giving a hard blow for it,” muttered Stubb, as he found himself descending the cabin-scuttle. “It’s very queer. Stop, Stubb; somehow, now, I don’t well know whether to go back and strike him, or—what’s that?—down here on my knees and pray for him? Yes, that was the thought coming up in me; but it would be the first time I ever did pray. It’s queer; very queer; and he’s queer too; aye, take him fore and aft, he’s about the queerest old man Stubb ever sailed with. How he flashed at me!—his eyes like powder-pans! is he mad? Anyway there’s something on his mind, as sure as there must be something on a deck when it cracks.
He ain’t in his bed now, either, more than three hours out of the twenty-four; and he don’t sleep then. Didn’t that Dough-Boy, the steward—him whose whole life is one continual lip-quiver—didn’t he tell me that of a morning he always finds the old man’s hammock clothes all rumpled and tumbled, and the sheets down at the foot, and the coverlid almost tied into knots, and the pillow a sort of frightful hot, as though a baked brick had been on it? A hot old man! Well, well; I don’t know what it is, but the Lord keep me from catching it.
He’s full of riddles; I wonder what he goes into the after hold for, every night, as Dough-Boy tells me he suspects; what’s that for, I should like to know? Who’s made appointments with him in the hold? Ain’t that queer, now? But there’s no telling, it’s the old game—
Damn me, but all things are queer, come to think of ‘em. But that’s against my principles. Think not, is my eleventh commandment; and Sleep when you can, is my twelfth—So here goes for a snooze. But how’s that? didn’t he call me a dog? blazes! he called me ten times a donkey, and piled a lot of jackasses on top of that! I was so taken all aback with his brow, somehow. It flashed like a bleached bone. Coming afoul of that old man has a sort of turned me wrong side out—but the only way’s to stash it; so here goes to hammock again; and in the morning, I’ll see how this plaguey juggling thinks over by daylight.”
When Stubb had departed, Ahab stood for a while leaning over the bulwarks; and then, as had been usual with him of late, calling a sailor of the watch, he sent him below for his ivory stool, and also his pipe. Lighting the pipe at the binnacle lamp and planting the stool on the weather side of the deck, he sat and smoked.
In old Norse times, the thrones of the sea-loving Danish kings were fabricated, saith tradition, of the tusks of the narwhal. How could one look at Ahab then, seated on that tripod of bones, without bethinking him of the royalty it symbolized? For a Khan of the plank, and a king of the sea, and a great lord of Leviathans was Ahab.
Some moments passed, during which the thick vapour came from his mouth in quick and constant puffs, which blew back again into his face. “How now,” he soliloquized at last, withdrawing the tube, “this smoking no longer soothes. Oh, my pipe! hard must it go with me if thy charm be gone! Here have I been unconsciously toiling, not pleasuring—aye, and ignorantly smoking to windward all the while; to windward, and with such nervous whiffs, as if, like the dying whale, my final jets were the strongest and fullest of trouble. What business have I with this pipe? This thing that is meant for sereneness, to send up mild white vapours among mild white hairs, not among torn locks like mine. I’ll smoke no more—“
He tossed the still lighted pipe into the sea. The fire hissed in the waves; the same instant the ship shot by the bubble the sinking pipe made. With slouched hat, Ahab lurchingly paced the planks.
Ahab’s Log: Chapter
All That
Glitters
Ahab’s log: January 21, 1851
Y onder, by ever-brimming goblet’s rim, the warm waves blush like wine. The gold brow plumbs the blue. The diver sun—slow dived from noon—goes down; my soul mounts up! she wearies with her endless hill. Is, then, the crown too heavy that I wear? this Iron Crown of Lombardy with its inner band of beaten iron a hammered nail from the very cross of the Crucifixion. And who is Christ but the most sanctified of zombies? That crown is bright with many a gem; I the wearer, see not its far flashings; but darkly feel that I wear that, that dazzlingly confounds. ‘Tis iron—that I know—not gold. ‘Tis split, too—that I feel; the jagged edge galls me so, my brain seems to beat against the solid metal; aye, steel skull, mine; the sort that needs no helmet in the most brain-battering fight!
I leave a white and turbid wake; pale waters, paler cheeks, where’er I sail. The envious billows sidelong swell to whelm my track; let them; but first I pass. Thank the sweet turning Earth and her sister Sun that we have sailed into such warmth to ease that deathlike clutch the cold hast spawned in thee, Ahab. Thy bones and sinew do fairly glow as the sun does glow; the warmth but illusion, yet one fair welcomed, for by its distant fire will thou keep thine own alit. But warmth be not enough, for we need speed, aye, and time, though both be but sides of the same tarnished coin. Ahab, wouldst thou sell thy soul for speed? Aye, indeed; but not one bent farthing wouldst thou get for such a wizened thing, for Ahab’s soul is near spent already. Ah, for time and tide and a fair wind with following seas!
Yon impertinent mate, one ginger-headed Stubb, hast pushed Ahab nigh the bursting point. Had that fool but one inkling of the peril with which he chivvies he would utter not one word more to Ahab. Fool! ‘Twas all Ahab could do to refrain from snatching the brains from out his skull. The smell of him! Such enticements! Fedallah warned thee, Ahab, and though ye somewhat heeded that sage advice and steeled thyself, yet how different it is to feel that foul hunger’s pull than to know that such a thing is in the offing. Blast and damnation! but we must kill a whale soon, for insatiable hungers surround this affair as sulphurous odors haunt the gates of Hell.
But stay
thy hand, Ahab, and quench thy unholy thirst with that small draught of black-tar laudanum Fedallah hast prepared for thee; for there is a greater thirst of revenge to whet thy soul, lest ye forget it. Time will come, too soon, too soon, when yon laudanum-soaked villain in the aft hold will be sore used. Quench thy gnawsome hunger and rage. Curséd Stubb. Doomed Stubb! If thou hast more trouble from that one, mayhap he will join that living corpse in the after hold.
Remember thy lessons, Ahab, for ye are not some spindle-shanked schoolboy to forget his lessons ere they enter his head, though thou be half spindle-shanked indeed; but for the nonce, thy mind is yet thine own and wouldst thou keep it so until that dark elder day, thou need only harken back to those teachings Fedallah hast forced upon thee. Breathe deep, spindle-legged manikin, and calm thy raging heart lest ye take that necessary future step too soon. Control thy autonomy, man. Blink. Breathe and recall thy purpose; breathe and know that what ye attempt hast higher purpose. If thou finishest the deed, thou earnest redemption for thy past litanies of sin, those thou art this moment committing, and for those ye will yet commit. What sweeter word may there be than that? Redemption. ‘Tis honey to thine ears; salt to thy blood.
Time—indifferent taskmaster—and his ancient, luscious succubus Memory, they will not tarry for thee, Ahab. Therefore thou must thyself tarry not one whit lest ye be left in their fading wake. But breathe; just so, or mayhap deeper. Blink thine eye. But breathe deeper won’t ye, and blink again as ye think on how to further thy aim, how best to speed thy course. What might goad men’s souls to deepest waters, to unsleeping alacrity, to unswerving vigilance? What else but gold, Ahab. Aye! Gold indeed. Forgettist not how gold may goad those who have but little felt its glittery touch; forgettest not the truth that Sin that pays its way can travel freely, and without a passport; whereas Virtue, if a pauper, is stopped at all frontiers.
So. Take thy lucky coin from thy pocket and use its hefty bright inducement to raise the white whale the sooner. In that way may ye sooner strike him and kill him and harvest that which may yet put to rest this frightful zomby plague, the shame of which is thine, Ahab. Thine! Thy guilt is but a deservéd burden thou carryest upon thy bent old shoulders. It is thy burden to carry, and thy burden to dispense with, for is’t not true that thou art no longer human? and did not the squaw Tistig prophesy that monster could not be killed by mortal man? And that, that, is the only solace to be sucked from this sad circumstance.
Thou bury thyself in this hollow cabin, as a bear lives out the winter in its hollow tree, sucking its paws; so, in thy inclement, howling old age does thy shriveled soul, shut up in the caved trunk of thy body feed upon the sullen paws of thy gloom!
Aye, gold may raise the white whale the sooner. Ye brought but this one sixteen-dollar piece from far Ecuador, its luck sung into it by that sweet mestiza, Alma, so long ago! Feel its heft in thy pocket. Would ye give up that lucky piece for a task such as this? Aye, aye, and a million times aye! Would that Ahab could but trade in all the gold in his deep dug coffers to meet Moby Dick this very hour! For just as Moby Dick cares not for gold, such is the hardened heart of Ahab now.
But the men before the mast!, that sorry lot will feel its lustery pull and thereby pull for the owning of it, and pull to start their eyes out. Count on that, Ahab, for if ever there be a truth in this strange and wicked world, it is that men will do their utmost for what is but ground-dug rock! And this one, stamped with astrological signs, imbued by that Quito witch with luck that needs must be sung from it. But what’s the tune? It eely melody is but half-rememberd; Alma did teach it to thee after long bouts of lovemaking and Ahab did learn it then, and much else besides, but the years have plastered it over, and slathered many coats of whitewash over that. No matter; it will come to thee anon. Ye must remember the tune ere offering it up, else the luck will die or, worse yet, turn to bite the singer.
Aye, that’s it; sing the luck from out the coin and nail that gold piece to the mast like a beacon to shine from every sailor’s eye. Do this and ye may yet avoid, for a short time only, that infandous deed that needs must be done ere thy purpose is fulfilled and redemption won.
Such is thy craven misgiving, Ahab that thou canst write of that pending necessary killing but only obliquely? What sallow-bellied thing hast thou become? Have ye not taken leviathan blood lo these forty years past, and yet now thou quailest at taking the blood of man, evil though he be? Did not Fedallah declare the deed crucial to Ahab’s continuance, and his own?
Avast, coward! Breathe some iron into thy heart. Nay, breathe steel; breathe diamond; breathe like the great gusting bellows pumped to stoke the forge-fire of Hephaestus himself to white-hot creation.
Ah, how much damnation can thy soul bear, Ahab and not founder on the shoals of madness proper? For ye are but now beneath lunacy’s lintel and have been beckoned within. Enter not!, lest ye cast off from thy purpose, thy redemption. So down thy potion, and hold fast Ahab, and trust in gold’s glim to light the eyes of others who may the sooner sing out for Moby Dick, so ye may the sooner see him spout his black blood, and make of him a corpse!
Chapter
The Little Lower Layer
Not a great while after the affair of the pipe, 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 steadily lurching 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. As he paced, he hummed some eldritch melody, accompanied by the clocklike metronome of his whalebone leg.
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 and hum in him as he hummed; 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. It drew near the close of day. Suddenly he came to a halt by the bulwarks, as in sudden remembrance, his features turned all of an instant from pensive to purposeful, and, inserting his bone leg into the auger-hole there by the bulwarks, 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, the selfsame singsong hum under his breath. 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, Ahab 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 ha
d 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.
“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? I had it off a comely shamaness, and since Ahab was a man of twenty-two, ever has it brought me good fortune. 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 the coin, 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.
Zomby Dick or, The Undead Whale Page 14