Moby Dick Herman Melville (polar express read aloud TXT) đ
- Author: Herman Melville
Book online «Moby Dick Herman Melville (polar express read aloud TXT) đ». Author Herman Melville
âAgainst the wind he now steers for the open jaw,â murmured Starbuck to himself, as he coiled the new-hauled main-brace upon the rail. âGod keep us, but already my bones feel damp within me, and from the inside wet my flesh. I misdoubt me that I disobey my God in obeying him!â
âStand by to sway me up!â cried Ahab, advancing to the hempen basket. âWe should meet him soon.â
âAye, aye, sir,â and straightway Starbuck did Ahabâs bidding, and once more Ahab swung on high.
A whole hour now passed; gold-beaten out to ages. Time itself now held long breaths with keen suspense. But at last, some three points off the weather bow, Ahab descried the spout again, and instantly from the three mastheads three shrieks went up as if the tongues of fire had voiced it.
âForehead to forehead I meet thee, this third time, Moby Dick! On deck there!â âbrace sharper up; crowd her into the windâs eye. Heâs too far off to lower yet, Mr. Starbuck. The sails shake! Stand over that helmsman with a top-maul! So, so; he travels fast, and I must down. But let me have one more good round look aloft here at the sea; thereâs time for that. An old, old sight, and yet somehow so young; aye, and not changed a wink since I first saw it, a boy, from the sand-hills of Nantucket! The same!â âthe same!â âthe same to Noah as to me. Thereâs a soft shower to leeward. Such lovely leewardings! They must lead somewhereâ âto something else than common land, more palmy than the palms. Leeward! the white whale goes that way; look to windward, then; the better if the bitterer quarter. But goodbye, goodbye, old masthead! Whatâs this?â âgreen? aye, tiny mosses in these warped cracks. No such green weather stains on Ahabâs head! Thereâs the difference now between manâs old age and matterâs. But aye, old mast, we both grow old together; sound in our hulls, though, are we not, my ship? Aye, minus a leg, thatâs all. By heaven this dead wood has the better of my live flesh every way. I canât compare with it; and Iâve known some ships made of dead trees outlast the lives of men made of the most vital stuff of vital fathers. Whatâs 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 Iâve been sailing from him, wherever he did sink to. Aye, aye, like many more thou toldâst direful truth as touching thyself, O Parsee; but, Ahab, there thy shot fell short. Goodbye, mastheadâ âkeep a good eye upon the whale, the while Iâm gone. Weâll talk tomorrow, nay, tonight, when the white whale lies down there, tied by head and tail.â
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 shallopâs stern, Ahab just hovered upon the point of the descent, he waved to the mateâ âwho held one of the tackle-ropes on deckâ âand bade him pause.
âStarbuck!â
âSir?â
âFor the third time my soulâs ship starts upon this voyage, Starbuck.â
âAye, sir, thou wilt have it so.â
âSome ships sail from their ports, and ever afterwards are missing, Starbuck!â
âTruth, sir: saddest truth.â
âSome men die at ebb tide; some at low water; some at the full of the flood;â âand I feel now like a billow thatâs all one crested comb, Starbuck. I am old;â âshake hands with me, man.â
Their hands met; their eyes fastened; Starbuckâs tears the glue.
âOh, my captain, my captain!â ânoble heartâ âgo notâ âgo not!â âsee, itâs a brave man that weeps; how great the agony of the persuasion then!â
âLower away!ââ âcried Ahab, tossing the mateâs arm from him. âStand by the crew!â
In an instant the boat was pulling round close under the stern.
âThe sharks! the sharks!â cried a voice from the low cabin-window there; âO master, my master, come back!â
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 whaleboats 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 Ahabâs crew were all such tiger-yellow barbarians, and therefore their flesh more musky to the senses of the sharksâ âa matter sometimes well known to affect themâ âhowever it was, they seemed to follow that one boat without molesting the others.
âHeart of wrought steel!â murmured Starbuck gazing over the side, and following with his eyes the receding boatâ ââcanst thou yet ring boldly to that sight?â âlowering thy keel among ravening sharks, and followed by them, open-mouthed to the chase; and this the critical third day?â âFor 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 thingâ âbe that end what it may. Oh! my God! what is this that shoots through me, and leaves me so deadly calm, yet expectantâ âfixed 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;
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