Moby Dick by Herman Melville (read this if txt) đ
- Author: Herman Melville
- Performer: 0142437247
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CHAPTER 127
The Deck
The coffin laid upon two line-tubs, between the vice-bench and the open hatchway; the Carpenter caulking its seams; the string of twisted oakum slowly unwinding from a large roll of it placed in the bosom of his frock.âAhab comes slowly from the cabin-gangway, and hears Pip following him.
Back lad; I will be with ye again presently. He goes! Not this hand complies with my humor more genially than that boy.â Middle aisle of a church! Whatâs here?â
âLife-buoy, sir. Mr. Starbuckâs orders. Oh, look, sir! Beware the hatchway!â
âThank ye, man. Thy coffin lies handy to the vault.â
âSir? The hatchway? oh! So it does, sir, so it does.â
âArt not thou the leg-maker? Look, did not this stump come from thy shop?â
âI believe it did, sir; does the ferrule stand, sir?â
âWell enough. But art thou not also the undertaker?â
âAye, sir; I patched up this thing here as a coffin for Queequeg; but theyâve set me now to turning it into something else.â
âThen tell me; art thou not an arrant, all-grasping, intermeddling, monopolizing, heathenish old scamp, to be one day making legs, and the next day coffins to clap them in, and yet again life-buoys out of those same coffins? Thou art as unprincipled as the gods, and as much of a jack-of-all-trades.â
âBut I do not mean anything, sir. I do as I do.â
âThe gods again. Hark ye, dost thou not ever sing working about a coffin? The Titans, they say, hummed snatches when chipping out the craters for volcanoes; and the grave-digger in the play sings, spade in hand. Dost thou never?â
âSing, sir? Do I sing? Oh, Iâm indifferent enough, sir, for that; but the reason why the grave-digger made music must have been because there was none in his spade, sir. But the caulking mallet is full of it. Hark to it.â
âAye, and thatâs because the lid thereâs a sounding-board; and what in all things makes the sounding-board is thisâ thereâs naught beneath. And yet, a coffin with a body in it rings pretty much the same, Carpenter. Hast thou ever helped carry a bier, and heard the coffin knock against the churchyard gate, going in?
âFaith, sir, Iâve-â
âFaith? Whatâs that?â
âWhy, faith, sir, itâs only a sort of exclamation-likeâ thatâs all, sir.â
âUm, um; go on.â
âI was about to say, sir, that-â
âArt thou a silk-worm? Dost thou spin thy own shroud out of thyself? Look at thy bosom! Despatch! and get these traps out of sight.â
âHe goes aft. That was sudden, now; but squalls come sudden in hot latitudes. Iâve heard that the Isle of Albermarle, one of the Gallipagos, is cut by the Equator right in the middle. Seems to me some sort of Equator cuts yon old man, too, right in his middle. Heâs always under the Lineâfiery hot, I tell ye! Heâs looking this wayâcome, oakum; quick. Here we go again. This wooden mallet is the cork, and Iâm the professor of musical glassesâtap, tap!â
(Ahab to himself)
âThereâs a sight! Thereâs a sound! The greyheaded wood-pecker tapping the hollow tree! Blind and dumb might well be envied now. See! that thing rests on two line-tubs, full of tow-lines. A most malicious wag, that fellow. Rat-tat! So manâs seconds tick! Oh! how immaterial are all materials! What things real are there, but imponderable thoughts? Here nowâs the very dreaded symbol of grim death, by a mere hap, made the expressive sign of the help and hope of most endangered life. A life-buoy of a coffin! Does it go further? Can it be that in some spiritual sense the coffin is, after all, but an immortality-preserver! Iâll think of that. But no. So far gone am I in the dark side of earth, that its other side, the theoretic bright one, seems but uncertain twilight to me. Will ye never have done, Carpenter, with that accursed sound? I go below; let me not see that thing here when I return again. Now, then, Pip, weâll talk this over; I do suck most wondrous philosophies from thee! Some unknown conduits from the unknown worlds must empty into thee!â
CHAPTER 128
The Pequod Meets The Rachel
Next day, a large ship, the Rachel, was descried, bearing directly down upon the Pequod, all her spars thickly clustering with men. At the time the Pequod was making good speed through the water; but as the broad-winged windward stranger shot nigh to her, the boastful sails all fell together as blank bladders that are burst, and all life fled from the smitten hull.
âBad news; she brings bad news,â muttered the old Manxman. But ere her commander, who, with trumpet to mouth, stood up in his boat; ere he could hopefully hail, Ahabâs voice was heard.
âHast seen the White Whale?â
âAye, yesterday. Have ye seen a whale-boat adrift?â
Throttling his joy, Ahab negatively answered this unexpected question; and would then have fain boarded the stranger, when the stranger captain himself, having stopped his vesselâs way, was seen descending her side. A few keen pulls, and his boat-hook soon clinched the Pequodâs main-chains, and he sprang to the deck. Immediately he was recognized by Ahab for a Nantucketer he knew. But no formal salutation was exchanged.
âWhere was he?ânot killed!ânot killed!â cried Ahab, closely advancing. âHow was it?â
It seemed that somewhat late on the afternoon of the day previous, while three of the strangerâs boats were engaged with a shoal of whales, which had led them some four or five miles from the ship; and while they were yet in swift chase to windward, the white hump and head of Moby Dick had suddenly loomed up out of the blue water, not very far to leeward; whereupon, the fourth rigged boatâ a reserved oneâhad been instantly lowered in chase. After a keen sail before the wind, this fourth boatâthe swiftest keeled of allâseemed to have succeeded in fasteningâat least, as well as the man at the mast-head could tell anything about it. In the distance he saw the diminished dotted boat; and then a swift gleam of bubbling white water; and after that nothing more; whence it was concluded that the stricken whale must have indefinitely run away with his pursuers, as often happens. There was some apprehension, but no positive alarm, as yet. The recall signals were placed in the rigging; darkness came on; and forced to pick up her three far to windward boatsâere going in quest of the fourth one in the precisely opposite directionâ the ship had not only been necessitated to leave that boat to its fate till near midnight, but, for the time, to increase her distance from it. But the rest of her crew being at last safe aboard, she crowded all sailâstunsail on stunsailâ after the missing boat; kindling a fire in her try-pots for a beacon; and every other man aloft on the look-out. But though when she had thus sailed a sufficient distance to gain the presumed place of the absent ones when last seen; though she then paused to lower her spare boats to pull all around her; and not finding anything, had again dashed on; again paused, and lowered her boats; and though she had thus continued doing till daylight; yet not the least glimpse of the missing keel had been seen.
The story told, the stranger Captain immediately went on to reveal his object in boarding the Pequod. He desired that ship to unite with his own in the search; by sailing over the sea some four or five miles apart, on parallel lines, and so sweeping a double horizon, as it were.
âI will wager something now,â whispered Stubb to Flask, âthat some one in that missing boat wore off that Captainâs best coat; mayhap, his watchâ heâs so cursed anxious to get it back. Who ever heard of two pious whale-ships cruising after one missing whale-boat in the height of the whaling season? See, Flask, only see how pale he looksâ pale in the very buttons of his eyesâlookâit wasnât the coatâ it must have been the-â
âMy boy, my own boy is among them. For Godâs sakeâI beg, I conjureââ here exclaimed the stranger Captain to Ahab, who thus far had but icily received his petition. âFor eight-and-forty hours let me charter your shipâI will gladly pay for it, and roundly pay for itâ if there be no other wayâfor eight-and-forty hours onlyâonly thatâ you must, oh, you must, and you shall do this thing.â
âHis son!â cried Stubb, âoh, itâs his son heâs lost! I take back the coat and watchâwhat says Ahab? We must save that boy.â
âHeâs drowned with the rest on âem, last night,â said the old Manx sailor standing behind them; âI heard; all of ye heard their spirits.â
Now, as it shortly turned out, what made this incident of the Rachelâs the more melancholy, was the circumstance, that not only was one of the Captainâs sons among the number of the missing boatâs crew; but among the number of the other boatsâ crews, at the same time, but on the other hand, separated from the ship during the dark vicissitudes of the chase, there had been still another son; as that for a time, the wretched father was plunged to the bottom of the cruellest perplexity; which was only solved for him by his chief mateâs instinctively adopting the ordinary procedure of a whaleship in such emergencies, that is, when placed between jeopardized but divided boats, always to pick up the majority first. But the captain, for some unknown constitutional reason, had refrained from mentioning all this, and not till forced to it by Ahabâs iciness did he allude to his one yet missing boy; a little lad, but twelve years old, whose father with the earnest but unmisgiving hardihood of a Nantucketerâs paternal love, had thus early sought to initiate him in the perils and wonders of a vocation almost immemorially the destiny of all his race. Nor does it unfrequently occur, that
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