Moby Dick Herman Melville (polar express read aloud TXT) 📖

setting sail for some other harbor.

“The ship’s company being reduced to but a handful, the captain called upon the Islanders to assist him in the laborious business of heaving down the ship to stop the leak. But to such unresting vigilance over their dangerous allies was this small band of whites necessitated, both by night and by day, and so extreme was the hard work they underwent, that upon the vessel being ready again for sea, they were in such a weakened condition that the captain durst not put off with them in so heavy a vessel. After taking counsel with his officers, he anchored the ship as far off shore as possible; loaded and ran out his two cannon from the bows; stacked his muskets on the poop; and warning the Islanders not to approach the ship at their peril, took one man with him, and setting the sail of his best whaleboat, steered straight before the wind for Tahiti, five hundred miles distant, to procure a reinforcement to his crew.

“On the fourth day of the sail, a large canoe was descried, which seemed to have touched at a low isle of corals. He steered away from it; but the savage craft bore down on him; and soon the voice of Steelkilt hailed him to heave to, or he would run him under water. The captain presented a pistol. With one foot on each prow of the yoked war-canoes, the Lakeman laughed him to scorn; assuring him that if the pistol so much as clicked in the lock, he would bury him in bubbles and foam.

“ ‘What do you want of me?’ cried the captain.

“ ‘Where are you bound? and for what are you bound?’ demanded Steelkilt; ‘no lies.’

“ ‘I am bound to Tahiti for more men.’

“ ‘Very good. Let me board you a moment⁠—I come in peace.’ With that he leaped from the canoe, swam to the boat; and climbing the gunwale, stood face to face with the captain.

“ ‘Cross your arms, sir; throw back your head. Now, repeat after me. As soon as Steelkilt leaves me, I swear to beach this boat on yonder island, and remain there six days. If I do not, may lightnings strike me!’

“ ‘A pretty scholar,’ laughed the Lakeman. ‘Adios, Señor!’ and leaping into the sea, he swam back to his comrades.

“Watching the boat till it was fairly beached, and drawn up to the roots of the coconut trees, Steelkilt made sail again, and in due time arrived at Tahiti, his own place of destination. There, luck befriended him; two ships were about to sail for France, and were providentially in want of precisely that number of men which the sailor headed. They embarked; and so forever got the start of their former captain, had he been at all minded to work them legal retribution.

“Some ten days after the French ships sailed, the whaleboat arrived, and the captain was forced to enlist some of the more civilized Tahitians, who had been somewhat used to the sea. Chartering a small native schooner, he returned with them to his vessel; and finding all right there, again resumed his cruisings.

“Where Steelkilt now is, gentlemen, none know; but upon the island of Nantucket, the widow of Radney still turns to the sea which refuses to give up its dead; still in dreams sees the awful white whale that destroyed him.⁠ ⁠…

“ ‘Are you through?’ said Don Sebastian, quietly.

“ ‘I am, Don.’

“ ‘Then I entreat you, tell me if to the best of your own convictions, this your story is in substance really true? It is so passing wonderful! Did you get it from an unquestionable source? Bear with me if I seem to press.’

“ ‘Also bear with all of us, sir sailor; for we all join in Don Sebastian’s suit,’ cried the company, with exceeding interest.

“ ‘Is there a copy of the Holy Evangelists in the Golden Inn, gentlemen?’

“ ‘Nay,’ said Don Sebastian; ‘but I know a worthy priest near by, who will quickly procure one for me. I go for it; but are you well advised? this may grow too serious.’

“ ‘Will you be so good as to bring the priest also, Don?’

“ ‘Though there are no Auto-da-Fés in Lima now,’ said one of the company to another; ‘I fear our sailor friend runs risk of the archiepiscopacy. Let us withdraw more out of the moonlight. I see no need of this.’

“ ‘Excuse me for running after you, Don Sebastian; but may I also beg that you will be particular in procuring the largest sized Evangelists you can.’

“ ‘This is the priest, he brings you the Evangelists,’ said Don Sebastian, gravely, returning with a tall and solemn figure.

“ ‘Let me remove my hat. Now, venerable priest, further into the light, and hold the Holy Book before me that I may touch it.

“ ‘So help me Heaven, and on my honor the story I have told ye, gentlemen, is in substance and its great items, true. I know it to be true; it happened on this ball; I trod the ship; I knew the crew; I have seen and talked with Steelkilt since the death of Radney.’ ”

LV Of the Monstrous Pictures of Whales

I shall ere long paint to you as well as one can without canvas, something like the true form of the whale as he actually appears to the eye of the whaleman when in his own absolute body the whale is moored alongside the whale-ship so that he can be fairly stepped upon there. It may be worth while, therefore, previously to advert to those curious imaginary portraits of him which even down to the present day confidently challenge the faith of the landsman. It is time to set the world right in this matter, by proving such pictures of the whale all wrong.

It may be that the primal source of all those pictorial delusions will be found among the oldest Hindu, Egyptian, and Grecian sculptures. Forever since those inventive but unscrupulous times when on the marble panellings of temples, the pedestals of statues, and