Unmindful of the tedious rope-ladders of the shrouds, the men, like shooting stars, slid to the deck, by the isolated backstays and halyards; while Ahab, less dartingly, but still rapidly was dropped from his perch.
"Lower away," he cried, so soon as he had reached his boat--a spare one, rigged the afternoon previous. "Mr.Starbuck, the ship is thine-- keep away from the boats, but keep near them. Lower, all!"
As if to strike a quick terror into them, by this time being the first a.s.sailant himself, Moby d.i.c.k had turned, and was now coming for the three crews. Ahab"s boat was central; and cheering his men, he told them he would take the whale head-and-head,-- that is, pull straight up to hisn his plantations, "whenever the amount of work done in a day approaches the standard of a day"s work in the North, the wages also approach the limit of Northern wages, under similar conditions."[161] Third, as to his alleged promise to sell his land to negroes at cost, he said, "I am not aware that I have ever committed myself to any definite plans for disposing of this land; for I have not been able to digest or mature any plan satisfactory to myself."[162] There is nothing vital in these two letters of Mr. Philbrick"s which is new to the reader of these pages. They are based on his firm belief that it was no kindness to the negro to make discriminations in his favor. Mr. Philbrick"s message to his superintendents about the increased pay demanded by "Siah and Pompey, and his advice to W. C. G. in the matter of corn planted between the rows of cotton were as follows: E. S. P. TO W. C. G. f2i Boston, May 18. f0i0 I have already written expressing my a.s.sent to the rise of wages at any time when you shall all agree, and also write C. P. W. to-day that I should at any time a.s.sent to any change in the management, sustained by the unanimousapproval of the corps upon the spot, without waiting to hear from me. You can avail yourself of the change to get rid of the corn in cotton-fields. I hope you will not pull it up yourself. I think such a step would lose more in dignity than you would gain in consistency of purpose. We must expect these people will take any undue advantage of us they think they can do with impunity, but I think such cases can be more readily reached through their pocket nerves than their moral sensibilities. Moreover, it is always better to do nothing in which we should not be sustained by the authorities, whose tender sympathies are not always judicious, as you know. I would not allow a hill of corn in the cotton-field, f2i i. e. f0i0 , I would not pay the extra price till it is pulled up. The next letter shows that the freedmen were waking up to their rights in more ways than one. FROM W. C. G. f2i May 19. f0i0 We had a queer scene here on Tuesday. It is probably the first time that the slaves--contrabands--freedmen--have a.s.serted themselves our fellow-countrymen by claiming the right of voting. A meeting was called in Beaufort to elect delegates to the Baltimore convention.[163] It was a.s.sumed that we could stand for the sovereign state of South Carolina, and so we sent her full complement of sixteen representatives, and furnished each with an alternate. There are hardly thirty-two decent men in the Department, it is commonly believed. A large half of the meeting consisted of blacks, and f2i four black delegates were chosen f0i0 , Robert Small[164] among them; the others I believe weresergeants in the South Carolina regiment. At one time there was considerable excitement, and white paired off against black,--but on the whole both colors behaved very well. The whole affair will be laughed at by the North, and it is hardly probable that the delegates will be received. I hope they will. In this hope W. C. G. was to be disappointed. Not one of the delegates was received. With a group of H. W."s letters the story goes back to home life. FROM H. W. f2i Sunday, May 8. f0i0 I have been wanting to see a Baptism performed as it is here in the creek, and as there was to be one to-day C. arranged yesterday for us all to go up. We had a lovely drive, reaching the bridge by the church just as the Baptism began, and, sitting in the wagon where we could see and hear everything, we witnessed the whole ceremony and saw the vast crowd that had collected for the same purpose. As the last came up out of the water the people began to sing, and we moved with the crowd towards the church, which was presently filled, as many more people outside sitting about. We sat for about four hours, through all the services. The minister soon changed his clothes and came in, but in the meantime the people sung. Mr. Parker took occasion in his sermon to express very liberal views towards other denominations of Christians, and then invited "all members of sister churches to remain to the Communion service." There has been so much talk and trouble about this, and all who were not Baptists have been so vigorously excluded,[165] that we were very glad to seethe new minister take a different ground, and remained gladly. While the deacons were arranging the Table, those who chose went out, after which the elders went to the doors to call them back. "Member, member, what you keep de church waitin" for?" and again the church was filled, floor and gallery,--I never saw such a sight,--but the minister"s earnestness and the general seriousness of the people made it unlike a spectacle, and a serious, most interesting occasion. Then there was a collection taken up in the elders" hats, the people making change while old Robert would attempt to persuade them to leave the whole bill! Then two couples were severally married, not both at once after Mr. Phillips" heathenish fashion, p.r.o.nouncing them all husbands and wives! f2i May 16. f0i0 I found that the Court was to meet here at nine o"clock. Mr. Soule asked me to be present, and I listened all day to the examination of the various witnesses. It was very interesting; but it was very sad to see how little dependence could be placed upon their word. Men and boys took the oath one after the other and then lied as if they had sworn to do so. Their ingenuity was wonderful, and we had to come to the conclusion that if those who we supposed spoke the truth had been on the other side they would have lied as badly as the others. It has now become very important to carry the case through and discover if possible who have perjured themselves, as they must learn how important it is for them to speak the truth. But little additional light was thrown by the labor of to-day, and theyadjourned at night till Thursday, at Pine Grove. f2i May 19. f0i0 The court sat at Pine Grove, but though the moral certainty was very great, it was almost impossible to convict on the evidence, because they lied so. A man came in great excitement to tell us that the rebels had made a raid during the night onto Morgan Island and carried off all the people. F. and R. immediately took the sailboat and went over to the gunboat to let them know. f2i May 22. f0i0 F. went to church to find out about the poor Morgan Island people, and heard from Mrs. Wells that eleven people, men and women, had been carried off by fifteen Secesh--three of Hamilton Fripp"s sons were among them. They took all the clothes, money, and eatables they could find, and told the people that they were living well and earning forty cents a day while their old mistress was starving and had no one to work for her, and they thought it was time they went to take care of her. One man escaped after his hands were tied, and one woman refused to get into the boat, and they knocked her down and left her.
They have frightened poor Mrs. Wells pretty effectually by saying they should like to carry Mr. Wells off on the points of their bayonets. "That man that pays them forty cents a day." A picket has been stationed there and another on Eddings Point. f2i May 27. f0i0 My "seamster," Maria, has a little girl who she sent me word should be my little chambermaid, and she wished me to name her. Her youngest child, n.o.ble, I did not know, he is such a great boy, and I remarked that he was bigger than Cicero wastwo years ago. "Too much, Missus, him lick Cicero now,"
and she explained that it was because he was a Yankee child, and then she and Rose enlarged upon the general superiority of the Yankee children, who could all "lick" all the Secesh children of twice their years! It was very funny, but I daresay there is some truth in it, as the women only work when they feel able to do so, and moreover they all have a greater variety of food. The boys returned from the gunboats with full accounts from the officers of the disgraceful abandonment of the expedition[166] and its complete failure, owing in the first place to the drunkenness of an officer and then to the failure of common sense. General Foster has arrived[167]--I hope he will prove to be somebody; this poor Department seems doomed. General Birney seems to have shown as little sense in this matter as on the negro question. f2i May 31.
f0i0 To dine at Pine Grove, stopping on the way to see if I could find any of Pierce Butler"s[168] people among the St.
Simonians who have settled on the deserted plantation of Hamilton Fripp. Found one woman who was nursery-maid at Mr. Hazard"s, who she said was a cousin of "Butler"s;"
she remembered him well and his two daughters, also Mrs.
Butler. "She was a very great lady--a f2i very f0i0 great lady, and a most beautiful lady--slender-like: she tell Mr.
Butler if he give up the slavery, she would likes to live there, but she couldn"t stan" that; but he wouldn"t "grees to that, so she goes "way and she get a dewoce. Oh, but she could ride hos"!" She said that Mr. Butler was a very kindmaster to his servants indeed, "but sometimes he have bad overseer." f2i June 15. f0i0 Rode through the quarters to tell the people myself that I was going home for a visit.
"But you comin" back dough--arter we get use" to you you mustn"t lef" we--and you sarvice to we when we sick too much." "Hi!" said old Betty, "you brudder an" sister been eat you like one oyshter!" "Dey tink you like one angel come down," said old Judy, "and they no ben see you so long time." The long letter that comes next is perhaps the most interesting and convincing of all that Mr. Philbrick wrote. E.
S. P. TO W. C. G. f2i Boston, July 8. f0i0 Your long letter has received due attention, but I do not yet feel as if it would be advisable to sell lands any sooner than I had always intended, viz., at the end of the war. I agree with you that the present system is unsatisfactory and annoying, tending to develop the evil as well as the good that is in the negro character. I had about concluded to propose next winter something like the following plan, but don"t think it good policy to promise f2i anything f0i0 now for two reasons: first, such promises would be distorted and misrepresented by the negroes among themselves in the interim, so that when the time comes, nothing but dissatisfaction and growling would result; second, because something may turn up in the meantime to change my mind as to what is best. My rough plan is to sell to the people at cost all live-stock and implements we could spare,--nearly the whole,--for which they can doubtless pay cash next winter. Then divide the lands among them to beused as they see fit for the remainder of the war, they to pay either a certain share of the cotton they raise, say one half, or a certain amount of cotton, annually. (Don"t like this last.) A small farm to be reserved on large plantations to be sold to or worked by some white settler, who can devote his time there and act as our agent to look after our rights, and if possible work a little cotton on his own account, experimenting and introducing improved methods of culture. It might be almost impossible for such a man to get labor, but there will be some negroes too dependent in their habits to want to wait a year for their pay and some old people and widows who would prefer wages paid monthly. This white man"s farm is, however, not a necessary part of the plan, and if labor can"t be got, of course it wouldn"t succeed. Teachers and store-keepers to be kept on the ground at our expense, who will look after the houses they live in and do whatever else they can to keep things straight. Another plan is to sell life-leases to the negroes, instead of the fee simple, disposing of the lands you propose to sell. This occurred to me as a means of avoiding the terrible and disastrous confusion which it will be next to impossible to avoid after a term of years, if the fee should be conveyed, when the purchasers die and sell or change land as they will to a certain extent in time. It is bad enough to trace a t.i.tle and find out whether it is good for anything here in systematic New England, and difficult enough, too, to fix boundaries and maintain them against encroachments; but it makes my orderly bones ache tothink of a time when, after some men now purchasing land shall die, leaving two or three sets of children, some born under wedlock and some not, some not their own but their wives" children, some even of questionable parentage, and some who were never heard of before, all claiming a slice of the deceased man"s land, and of course all claiming the best. Suppose it was bounded by a "stake and stones" as of old here, minus the stones which are absent; suppose some of the claimants think best to set up a new stake where one has gone to decay, and suppose they are not over exact in placing it; or suppose, as is more than likely, their neighbor thinks the new stake encroaches on him and pulls it up entirely, stamping on the hole and putting it in according to his own ideas, etc., etc., ad infinitum. Now, as you must admit that all this is likely to occur, and worse too, would such a state of things tend to bring about a healthy and rapid development? Any one who has watched the minute subdivision of lands among the French peasantry knows that after a few generations a man has not land enough to live on or work economically, and hence a vast amount of time and energy is wasted in France for lack of organization;--that, too, where they have an administration of justice the most minute and exact to be found in the whole world, an organization of the judiciary which reaches to every man"s case, however minute or inconspicuous. The life-lease system would avoid these troubles, but would be open to this objection, a serious one, too, viz., the negro ought to feel that inbuilding up a home for himself, it shall be a home for his children, for he has too little of the feeling of responsibility for his offspring, which is one of the best stimulants to good order and civilization. The future value of the lands is a question I don"t think of much consequence, neither is the question of profit to the present holders to be considered, when conflicting with the future welfare of the community. If we only had clearness of vision, the wisdom to see what would really be best for the ma.s.ses, I sincerely believe that it could readily be adopted without in any way prejudicing the present profits of the holders. You speak of the probability of having less cotton planted for us in case your plan is followed. I shouldn"t consider that of f2i any consequence whatever f0i0 , except that, as a general thing, the amount of cotton planted will always be a pretty sure index of the state of industry of the people, and their industry will always be the best measure of their improvement. It might take them some time to find out that cotton was the best thing for them to work on, but present prices are fast teaching them this fact. The objection noted above against a life-lease is a serious one, and perhaps sufficient to balance those future annoyances likely to grow out of selling the fee. I do not agree with you in what you say of the f2i unnatural f0i0 dependence of these people. I don"t see any people on the face of the earth of their rank in civilization who are so independent as they are. I don"t see the justice of the claim to the soil now made in their behalf by Mr. J. A. Saxton[169] and others,and with which you seem to sympathize somewhat. The fact is that no race of men on G.o.d"s earth ever acquired the right to the soil on which they stand without more vigorous exertions than these people have made. This is apparently the wise order of Providence as a means of discipline, or the misfortune of man, as a consequence of his failings, perhaps both; but I cannot see why these people should be excepted from the general rule. If they f2i have f0i0 acquired the necessary qualifications to be benefited by becoming landholders, then there is no reason for delay; but here is the very point of difference between us, whether they would be in the long run so benefited. As to price, I never considered the question of plast the lives of men made of the most vital stuff of vital fathers. What"s that he said? he should still go before me, my pilot; and yet to be seen again? But where? Will I have eyes at the bottom of the sea, supposing I descend those endless stairs? and all night I"ve been sailing from him, wherever he did sink to. Aye, aye, like many more thou told"st direful truth as touching thyself, O Pa.r.s.ee; but, Ahab, there thy shot fell short. Good bye, mast-head--keep a good eye upon the whale, the while I"m gone. We"ll talk to-morrow, nay, to-night, when the white whale lies down there, tied by head and tail."
He gave the word; and still gazing round him, was steadily lowered through the cloven blue air to the deck.In due time the boats were lowered; but as standing in his shallop"s stern, Ahab just hovered upon the point of the descent, he waved to the mate,--who held one of the tackle--ropes on deck-- and bade him pause.
"Starbuck!"
"Sir?"
"For the third time my soul"s ship starts upon this voyage, Starbuck."
"Aye, sir, thou wilt have it so."
"Some ships sail from their ports, and ever afterwards are missing, Starbuck!"
"Truth, sir: saddest truth."
"Some men die at ebb tide; some at low water; some at the full of the flood;--and I feel now like a billow that"s all one crested comb, Starbuck. I am old;--shake hands with me, man."
Their hands met; their eyes fastened; Starbuck"s tears the glue."Oh, my captain, my captain!--n.o.ble heart--go not--go not!--see, it"s a brave man that weeps; how great the agony of the persuasion then!"
"Lower away!"-cried Ahab, tossing the mate"s arm from him. "Stand by for the crew!"
In an instant the boat was pulling round close under the stern.
"The sharks! the sharks!" cried a voice from the low cabin-window there; "O master, my master, come back!"
But Ahab heard nothing; for his own voice was high-lifted then; and the boat leaped on.
Yet the voice spake true; for scarce had he pushed from the ship, when numbers of sharks, seemingly rising from out the dark waters beneath the hull, maliciously snapped at the blades of the oars, every time they dipped in the water; and in this way accompanied the boat with their bites. It is a thing not uncommonly happening to the whale-boats in those swarming seas; the sharks at times apparently following them in the same prescient way that vultures hover over the banners of marching regiments in the east. But these were the first sharks that had been observed by the Pequod since the White Whale had been first descried; and whether it was that Ahab"s crew were allsuch tiger-yellow barbarians, and therefore their flesh more musky to the senses of the sharks-- a matter sometimes well known to affect them,--however it was, they seemed to follow that one boat without molesting the others.
"Heart of wrought steel!" murmured Starbuck gazing over the side, and following with his eyes the receding boat--"canst thou yet ring boldly to that sight?--lowering thy keel among ravening sharks, and followed by them, open-mouthed to the chase; and this the critical third day?--For when three days flow together in one continuous intense pursuit; be sure the first is the morning, the second the noon, and the third the evening and the end of that thing--be that end what it may. Oh! my G.o.d! what is this that shoots through me, and leaves me so deadly calm, yet expectant,--fixed at the top of a shudder! Future things swim before me, as in empty outlines and skeletons; all the past is somehow grown dim. Mary, girl; thou fadest in pale glories behind me; boy! I seem to see but thy eyes grown wondrous blue. Strangest problems of life seem clearing; but clouds sweep between--Is my journey"s end coming?
My legs feel faint; like his who has footed it all day. Feel thy heart,--beats it yet? Stir thyself, Starbuck!-- stave it off--move, move! speak aloud!--Mast-head there! See ye my boy"s hand on the hill?--Crazed; aloft there!-- keep thy keenest eye upon the boats:--mark well the whale!-- Ho!
again!--drive off that hawk! see! he pecks--he tears the vane"-- pointing to the red flag flying at themain-truck--"Ha, he soars away with it!--Where"s the old man now? see"st thou that sight, oh Ahab!--shudder, shudder!"
The boats had not gone very far, when by a signal from the mast-heads-- a downward pointed arm, Ahab knew that the whale had sounded; but intending to be near him at the next rising, he held on his way a little sideways from the vessel; the becharmed crew maintaining the profoundest silence, as the head-bent waves hammered and hammered against the opposing bow.
"Drive, drive in your nails, oh ye waves! to their uttermost heads drive them in! ye but strike a thing without a lid; and no coffin and no hea.r.s.e can be mine:--and hemp only can kill me! Ha! ha!"
Suddenly the waters around them slowly swelled in broad circles; then quickly upheaved, as if sideways sliding from a submerged berg of ice, swiftly rising to the surface. A low rumbling sound was heard; a subterraneous hum; and then all held their breaths; as bedraggled with trailing ropes, and harpoons, and lances, a vast form shot lengthwise, but obliquely from the sea. Shrouded in a thin drooping veil of mist, it hovered for a moment in the rainbowed air; and then fell swamping back into the deep. Crushed thirty feet upwards, the waters flashed for an instant like heaps of fountains, then brokenly sank in a shower of flakes, leavingthe circling surface creamed like new milk round the marble trunk of the whale.
"Give way!" cried Ahab to the oarsmen, and the boats darted forward to the attack; but maddened by yesterday"s fresh irons that corroded in him, Moby d.i.c.k seemed combinedly possessed by all the angels that fell from heaven. The wide tiers of welded tendons overspreading his broad white forehead, beneath the transparent skin, looked knitted together; as head on, he came churning his tail among the boats; and once more flailed them apart; spilling out the irons and lances from the two mates" boats, and dashing in one side of the upper part of their bows, but leaving Ahab"s almost without a scar.
While Daggoo and Queequeg were stopping the strained planks; and as the whale swimming out from them, turned, and showed one entire flank as he shot by them again; at that moment a quick cry went up. Lashed round and round to the fish"s back; pinioned in the turns upon turns in which, during the past night, the whale had reeled the involutions of the lines around him, the half torn body of the Pa.r.s.ee was seen; his sable raiment frayed to shreds; his distended eyes turned full upon old Ahab.
The harpoon dropped from his hand."Befooled, befooled!"--drawing in a long lean breath--"Aye, Pa.r.s.ee! I see thee again.--Aye, and thou goest before; and this, this then is the hea.r.s.e that thou didst promise. But I hold thee to the last letter of thy word. Where is the second hea.r.s.e? Away, mates, to the ship! those boats are useless now; repair them if ye can in time, and return to me; if not, Ahab is enough to die--Down, men! the first thing that but offers to jump from this boat I stand in, that thing I harpoon.
Ye are not other men, but my arms and my legs; and so obey me.-- Where"s the whale? gone down again?"
But he looked too nigh the boat; for as if bent upon escaping with the corpse he bore, and as if the particular place of the last encounter had been but a stage in his leeward voyage, Moby d.i.c.k was now again steadily swimming forward; and had almost pa.s.sed the ship,--which thus far had been sailing in the contrary direction to him, though for the present her headway had been stopped. He seemed swimming with his utmost velocity, and now only intent upon pursuing his own straight path in the sea.
"Oh! Ahab," cried Starbuck, "not too late is it, even now, the third day, to desist. See! Moby d.i.c.k seeks thee not. It is thou, thou, that madly seekest him!"
Setting sail to the rising wind, the lonely boat was swiftly impelled to leeward, by both oars and canvas. And at last when Ahab was sliding by the vessel, so near as plainly todistinguish Starbuck"s face as he leaned over the rail, he hailed him to turn the vessel about, and follow him, not too swiftly, at a judicious interval. Glancing upwards he saw Tashtego, Queequeg, and Daggoo, eagerly mounting to the three mast-heads; while the oarsmen were rocking in the two staved boats which had but just been hoisted to the side, and were busily at work in repairing them. One after the other, through the port-holes, as he sped, he also caught flying glimpses of Stubb and Flask, busying themselves on deck among bundles of new irons and lances. As he saw all this; as he heard the hammers in the broken boats; far other hammers seemed driving a nail into his heart. But he rallied. And now marking that the vane or flag was gone from the main-mast-head, he shouted to Tashtego, who had just gained that perch, to descend again for another flag, and a hammer and nails, and so nail it to the mast.
Whether f.a.gged by the three days" running chase, and the resistance to his swimming in the knotted hamper he bore; or whether it was some latent deceitfulness and malice in him: whichever was true, the White Whale"s way now began to abate, as it seemed, from the boat so rapidly nearing him once more; though indeed the whale"s last start had not been so long a one as before. And still as Ahab glided over the waves the unpitying sharks accompanied him; and so pertinaciously stuck to the boat; and so continually bit at the plying oars, that the bladesbecame jagged and crunched, and left small splinters in the sea, at almost every dip.
"Heed them not! those teeth but give new rowlocks to your oars. Pull on! "tis the better rest, the sharks" jaw than the yielding water."
"But at every bite, sir, the thin blades grow smaller and smaller!"
"They will last long enough! pull on!--But who can tell"-- he muttered--"whether these sharks swim to feast on the whale or on Ahab?--But pull on! Aye, all alive, now--we near him. The helm! take the helm! let me pa.s.s,"--and so saying two of the oarsmen helped him forward to the bows of the still flying boat.
At length as the craft was cast to one side, and ran ranging along with the White Whale"s flank, he seemed strangely oblivious of its advance--as the whale sometimes will--and Ahab was fairly within the smoky mountain mist, which, thrown off from the whale"s spout, curled round his great Monadnock hump; he was even thus close to him; when, with body arched back, and both arms lengthwise high-lifted to the poise, he darted his fierce iron, and his far fiercer curse into the hated whale. As both steel and curse sank to the socket, as if sucked into a mora.s.s, Moby d.i.c.k sideways writhed; spasmodically rolled his nigh flankagainst the bow, and, without staving a hole in it, so suddenly canted the boat over, that had it not been for the elevated part of the gunwale to which he then clung, Ahab would once more have been tossed into the sea. As it was, three of the oarsmen--who foreknew not the precise instant of the dart, and were therefore unprepared for its effects-- these were flung out; but so fell, that, in an instant two of them clutched the gunwale again, and rising to its level on a combing wave, hurled themselves bodily inboard again; the third man helplessly dropping astern, but still afloat and swimming.
Almost simultaneously, with a mighty volition of ungraduated, instantaneous swiftness, the White Whale darted through the weltering sea. But when Ahab cried out to the steersman to take new turns with the line, and hold it so; and commanded the crew to turn round on their seats, and tow the boat up to the mark; the moment the treacherous line felt that double strain and tug, it snapped in the empty air!
"What breaks in me? Some sinew cracks!--"tis whole again; oars! oars! Burst in upon him!"
Hearing the tremendous rush of the sea-crashing boat, the whale wheeled round to present his blank forehead at bay; but in that evolution, catching sight of the nearing black hull of the ship; seemingly seeing in it the source of all hispersecutions; bethinking it--it may be--a larger and n.o.bler foe; of a sudden, he bore down upon its advancing prow, smiting his jaws amid fiery showers of foam.
Ahab staggered; his hand smote his forehead. "I grow blind; hands! stretch out before me that I may yet grope my way. Is"t night?"
"The whale! The ship!" cried the cringing oarsmen.
"Oars! oars! Slope downwards to thy depths, O sea that ere it be for ever too late, Ahab may slide this last, last time upon his mark! I see: the ship! the ship! Dash on, my men!
Will ye not save my ship?"
But as the oarsmen violently forced their boat through the sledge-hammering seas, the before whale-smitten bow-ends of two planks burst through, and in an instant almost, the temporarily disabled boat lay nearly level with the waves; its half-wading, splashing crew, trying hard to stop the gap and bale out the pouring water.
Meantime, for that one beholding instant, Tashtego"s mast-head hammer remained suspended in his hand; and the red flag, half-wrapping him as with a plaid, then streamed itself straight out from him, as his own forward-flowing heart; while Starbuck and Stubb, standing upon the bowsprit beneath, caught sight of thedown-coming monster just as soon as he.
"The whale, the whale! Up helm, up helm! Oh, all ye sweet powers of air, now hug me close! Let not Starbuck die, if die he must, in a woman"s fainting fit. Up helm, I say--ye fools, the jaw! the jaw! Is this the end of all my bursting prayers? all my life-long fidelities? Oh, Ahab, Ahab, lo, thy work. Steady! helmsman, steady. Nay, nay! Up helm again!
He turns to meet us! Oh, his unappeasable brow drives on towards one, whose duty tells him he cannot depart. My G.o.d, stand by me now!"
"Stand not by me, but stand under me, whoever you are that will now help Stubb; for Stubb, too, sticks here. I grin at thee, thou grinning whale! Who ever helped Stubb, or kept Stubb awake, but Stubb"s own unwinking eye? And now poor Stubb goes to bed upon a mattra.s.s that is all too soft; would it were stuffed with brushwood! I grin at thee, thou grinning whale! Look ye, sun, moon, and stars! I call ye a.s.sa.s.sins of as good a fellow as ever spouted up his ghost. For all that, I would yet ring gla.s.ses with ye, would ye but hand the cup! Oh, oh! oh, oh! thou grinning whale, but there"ll be plenty of gulping soon! Why fly ye not, O Ahab! For me, off shoes and jacket to it; let Stubb die in his drawers! A most mouldy and over salted death, though;--cherries! cherries! cherries! Oh, Flask, for one red cherry ere we die!""Cherries? I only wish that we were where they grow. Oh, Stubb, I hope my poor mother"s drawn my part-pay ere this; if not, few coppers will now come to her, for the voyage is up."
From the ship"s bows, nearly all the seamen now hung inactive; hammers, bits of plank, lances, and harpoons, mechanically retained in their hands, just as they had darted from their various employments; all their enchanted eyes intent upon the whale, which from side to side strangely vibrating his predestinating head, sent a broad band of overspreading semicircular foam before him as he rushed. Retribution, swift vengeance, eternal malice were in his whole aspect, and spite of all that mortal man could do, the solid white b.u.t.tress of his forehead smote the ship"s starboard bow, till men and timbers reeled. Some fell flat upon their faces. Like dislodged trucks, the heads of the harpooneers aloft shook on their bull-like necks. Through the breach, they heard the waters pour, as mountain torrents down a flume.
"The ship! The hea.r.s.e!--the second hea.r.s.e!" cried Ahab from the boat; "its wood could only be American!"
Diving beneath the settling ship, the whale ran quivering along its keel; but turning under water, swiftly shot to the surface again, far off the other bow, but within a few yards of Ahab"s boat, where, for a time, he lay quiescent."I turn my body from the sun. What ho, Tashtego! Let me hear thy hammer. Oh! ye three unsurrendered spires of mine; thou uncracked keel; and only G.o.d-bullied hull; thou firm deck, and haughty helm, and Pole-pointed prow,--death--glorious ship! must ye then perish, and without me? Am I cut off from the last fond pride of meanest shipwrecked captains? Oh, lonely death on lonely life! Oh, now I feel my topmost greatness lies in my topmost grief. Ho, ho! from all your furthest bounds, pour ye now in, ye bold billows of my whole foregone life, and top this one piled comber of my death! Towards thee I roll, thou all-destroying but unconquering whale; to the last I grapple with thee; from h.e.l.l"s heart I stab at thee; for hate"s sake I spit my last breath at thee. Sink all coffins and all hea.r.s.es to one common pool! and since neither can be mine, let me then tow to pieces, while still chasing thee, though tied to thee, thou d.a.m.ned whale! Thus, I give up the spear!"
The harpoon was darted; the stricken whale flew forward; with igniting velocity the line ran through the grooves;--ran foul. Ahab stooped to clear it; he did clear it; but the flying turn caught him round the neck, and voicelessly as Turkish mutes bowstring their victim, he was shot out of the boat, ere the crew knew he was gone. Next instant, the heavy eye-splice in the rope"s final end flew out of the stark-empty tub, knocked down an oarsman, and smiting the sea, disappeared in its depths.For an instant, the tranced boat"s crew stood still; then turned. "The ship? Great G.o.d, where is the ship?" Soon they through dim, bewildering mediums saw her sidelong fading phantom, as in the gaseous Fata Morgana; only the uppermost masts out of water; while fixed by infatuation, or fidelity, or fate, to their once lofty perches, the pagan harpooneers still maintained their sinking look-outs on the sea. And now, concentric circles seized the lone boat itself, and all its crew, and each floating oar, and every lancepole, and spinning, animate and inanimate, all round and round in one vortex, carried the smallest chip of the Pequod out of sight.
But as the last whelmings intermixingly poured themselves over the sunken head of the Indian at the mainmast, leaving a few inches of the erect spar yet visible, together with long streaming yards of the flag, which calmly undulated, with ironical coincidings, over the destroying billows they almost touched;--at that instant, a red arm and a hammer hovered backwardly uplifted in the open air, in the act of nailing the flag faster and yet faster to the subsiding spar. A sky-hawk that tauntingly had followed the main-truck downwards from its natural home among the stars, pecking at the flag, and incommoding Tashtego there; this bird now chanced to intercept its broad fluttering wing between the hammer and the wood; and simultaneously feeling that etherial thrill, the submerged savage beneath, in his death-gasp, kept his hammerfrozen there; and so the bird of heaven, with archangelic shrieks, and his imperial beak thrust upwards, and his whole captive form folded in the flag of Ahab, went down with his ship, which, like Satan, would not sink to h.e.l.l till she had dragged a living part of heaven along with her, and helmeted herself with it.
Now small fowls flew screaming over the yet yawning gulf; a sullen white surf beat against its steep sides; then all collapsed, and the great shroud of the sea rolled on as it rolled five thousand years ago.
Epilogue "AND I ONLY AM ESCAPED ALONE TO TELL THEE"
Job.
The drama"s done. Why then here does any one step forth?-- Because one did survive the wreck.
It so chanced, that after the Pa.r.s.ee"s disappearance, I was he whom the Fates ordained to take the place of Ahab"s bowsman, when that bowsman a.s.sumed the vacant post; the same, who, when on the last day the three men were tossed from out of the rocking boat, was dropped astern.
So, floating on the margin of the ensuing scene, and in full sight of it, when the halfspent suction of the sunk ship reached me, I was then, but slowly, drawn towards theclosing vortex. When I reached it, it had subsided to a creamy pool. Round and round, then, and ever contracting towards the b.u.t.ton-like black bubble at the axis of that slowly wheeling circle, like another Ixion I did revolve. Till, gaining that vital centre, the black bubble upward burst; and now, liberated by reason of its cunning spring, and, owing to its great buoyancy, rising with great force, the coffin life-buoy shot lengthwise from the sea, fell over, and floated by my side. Buoyed up by that coffin, for almost one whole day and night, I floated on a soft and dirgelike main.
The unharming sharks, they glided by as if with padlocks on their mouths; the savage sea-hawks sailed with sheathed beaks. On the second day, a sail drew near, nearer, and picked me up at last. It was the devious-cruising Rachel, that in her retracing search after her missing children, only found another orphan.
ETYMOLOGY (Supplied by a Late Consumptive Usher to a Grammar School) The pale Usher--threadbare in coat, heart, body, and brain; I see him now. He was ever dusting his old lexicons and grammars, with a queer handkerchief, mockingly embellished with all the gay flags of all the known nations of the world. He loved to dust his old grammars; it somehow mildly reminded him of his mortality."While you take in hand to school others, and to teach them by what name a whale-fish is to be called in our tongue leaving out, through ignorance, the letter H, which almost alone maketh the signification of the word, you deliver that which is not true." --HACKLUYT "WHALE. ... Sw. and Dan. hval. This animal is named from roundness or rolling; for in Dan. hvalt is arched or vaulted."
--WEBSTER"S DICTIONARY "WHALE. ... It is more immediately from the Dut. and Ger.
Wallen; A.S. Walw-ian, to roll, to wallow."
--RICHARDSON"S DICTIONARY KETOS, Greek. CETUS, Latin. WHOEL, Anglo-Saxon.
HVALT, Danish. WAL, Dutch. HWAL, Swedish. WHALE, Icelandic. WHALE, English. BALEINE, French. BALLENA, Spanish. PEKEE-NUEE-NUEE, Fegee.
PEKEE-NUEE-NUEE, Erromangoan.
EXTRACTS (Supplied by a Sub-Sub-Librarian) It will be seen that this mere painstaking burrower and grub-worm of a poor devil of a Sub-Sub appears to have gone through the long Vaticans and street-stalls of the earth, picking up whatever random allusions to whales he could anyways find in any book whatsoever, sacred or profane. therefore you must not, in every case at least,take the higgledy-piggledy whale statements, however authentic, in these extracts, for veritable gospel cetology.
Far from it. As touching the ancient authors generally, as well as the poets here appearing, these extracts are solely valuable or entertaining, as affording a glancing bird"s eye view of what has been promiscuously said, thought, fancied, and sung of Leviathan, by many nations and generations, including our own.
So fare thee well, poor devil of a Sub-Sub, whose commentator I am. Thou belongest to that hopeless, sallow tribe which no wine of this world will ever warm; and for whom even Pale Sherry would be too rosy-strong; but with whom one sometimes loves to sit, and feel poor-devilish, too; and grow convivial upon tears; and say to them bluntly, with full eyes and empty gla.s.ses, and in not altogether unpleasant sadness-- Give it up, Sub-Subs! For by how much more pains ye take to please the world, by so much the more shall ye for ever go thankless! Would that I could clear out Hampton Court and the Tuileries for ye! But gulp down your tears and hie aloft to the royal-mast with your hearts; for your friends who have gone before are clearing out the seven-storied heavens, and making refugees of long pampered Gabriel, Michael, and Raphael, against your coming. Here ye strike but splintered hearts together--there, ye shall strike unsplinterable gla.s.ses!
"And G.o.d created great whales." --GENESIS."Leviathan maketh a path to shine after him; One would think the deep to be h.o.a.ry." --JOB.
"Now the Lord had prepared a great fish to swallow up Jonah." --JONAH.
"There go the ships; there is that Leviathan whom thou hast made to play therein." --PSALMS.
"In that day, the Lord with his sore, and great, and strong sword, shall punish Leviathan the piercing serpent, even Leviathan that crooked serpent; and he shall slay the dragon that is in the sea." --ISAIAH "And what thing soever besides cometh within the chaos of this monster"s mouth, be it beast, boat, or stone, down it goes all incontinently that foul great swallow of his, and perisheth in the bottomless gulf of his paunch."
--HOLLAND"S PLUTARCH"S MORALS.
"The Indian Sea breedeth the most and the biggest fishes that are: among which the Whales and Whirlpooles called Balaene, take up as much in length as four acres or arpens of land." --HOLLAND"S PLINY.
"Scarcely had we proceeded two days on the sea, when about sunrise a great many Whales and other monsters of the sea, appeared. Among the former, one was of a mostmonstrous size. ... This came towards us, open-mouthed, raising the waves on all sides, and beating the sea before him into a foam." --TOOKE"S LUCIAN. "THE TRUE HISTORY."
"He visited this country also with a view of catching horse-whales, which had bones of very great value for their teeth, of which he brought some to the king. ... The best whales were catched in his own country, of which some were forty-eight, some fifty yards long. He said that he was one of six who had killed sixty in two days." --OTHER OR OCTHER"S VERBAL NARRATIVE TAKEN DOWN FROM HIS MOUTH BY KING ALFRED, A.D. 890.
"And whereas all the other things, whether beast or vessel, that enter into the dreadful gulf of this monster"s (whale"s) mouth, are immediately lost and swallowed up, the sea-gudgeon retires into it in great security, and there sleeps." --MONTAIGNE. - APOLOGY FOR RAIMOND SEBOND.
"Let us fly, let us fly! Old Nick take me if is not Leviathan described by the n.o.ble prophet Moses in the life of patient Job." --RABELAIS.
"This whale"s liver was two cartloads." --STOWE"S ANNALS."The great Leviathan that maketh the seas to seethe like boiling pan." --LORD BACON"S VERSION OF THE PSALMS.
"Touching that monstrous bulk of the whale or ork we have received nothing certain. They grow exceeding fat, insomuch that an incredible quant.i.ty of oil will be extracted out of one whale." --IBID. "HISTORY OF LIFE AND DEATH."
"The sovereignest thing on earth is parmacetti for an inward bruise." --KING HENRY.
"Very like a whale." --HAMLET.
"Which to secure, no skill of leach"s art Mote him availle, but to returne againe To his wound"s worker, that with lowly dart, Dinting his breast, had bred his restless paine, Like as the wounded whale to sh.o.r.e flies thro" the maine." --THE FAERIE QUEEN.
"Immense as whales, the motion of whose vast bodies can in a peaceful calm trouble the ocean til it boil." --SIR WILLIAM DAVENANT. PREFACE TO GONDIBERT.
"What spermacetti is, men might justly doubt, since the learned Hosmannus in his work of thirty years, saith plainly, Nescio quid sit." --SIR T. BROWNE. OF SPERMACETI AND THE SPERMA CETI WHALE. VIDE HIS V. E.
"Like Spencer"s Talus with his modern flail He threatens ruin with his ponderous tail. ... Their fixed jav"lins in his side he wears, And on his back a grove of pikes appears."
--WALLER"S BATTLE OF THE SUMMER ISLANDS.
"By art is created that great Leviathan, called a Commonwealth or State--(in Latin, Civitas) which is but an artificial man." --OPENING SENTENCE OF HOBBES"S LEVIATHAN.
"Silly Mansoul swallowed it without chewing, as if it had been a sprat in the mouth of a whale." --PILGRIM"S PROGRESS.
"That sea beast Leviathan, which G.o.d of all his works Created hugest that swim the ocean stream." --PARADISE LOST.
"There Leviathan, Hugest of living creatures, in the deep Stretched like a promontory sleeps or swims, And seems a moving land; and at his gills Draws in, and at his breath spouts out a sea." --IBID.