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- thousand ships now sailing the seas. Why, you King-Post, you, I suppose
you would have every man in the world go about with a small
lightning-rod running up the corner of his hat, like a militia
officer’s skewered feather, and trailing behind like his sash. Why
don’t ye be sensible, Flask? it’s easy to be sensible; why don’t ye,
then? any man with half an eye can be sensible.”
“I don’t know that, Stubb. You sometimes find it rather hard.”
“Yes, when a fellow’s soaked through, it’s hard to be sensible, that’s
a fact. And I am about drenched with this spray. Never mind; catch the
turn there, and pass it. Seems to me we are lashing down these anchors
now as if they were never going to be used again. Tying these two
anchors here, Flask, seems like tying a man’s hands behind him. And
what big generous hands they are, to be sure. These are your iron
fists, hey? What a hold they have, too! I wonder, Flask, whether the
world is anchored anywhere; if she is, she swings with an uncommon long
cable, though. There, hammer that knot down, and we’ve done. So; next
to touching land, lighting on deck is the most satisfactory. I say,
just wring out my jacket skirts, will ye? Thank ye. They laugh at
long-togs so, Flask; but seems to me, a long tailed coat ought always
to be worn in all storms afloat. The tails tapering down that way,
serve to carry off the water, d’ye see. Same with cocked hats; the
cocks form gable-end eave-troughs, Flask. No more monkey-jackets and
tarpaulins for me; I must mount a swallow-tail, and drive down a
beaver; so. Halloa! whew! there goes my tarpaulin overboard; Lord,
Lord, that the winds that come from heaven should be so unmannerly!
This is a nasty night, lad.”
CHAPTER 122. Midnight Aloft.—Thunder and Lightning.
_The main-top-sail yard_.—_Tashtego passing new lashings around it_.
“Um, um, um. Stop that thunder! Plenty too much thunder up here. What’s
the use of thunder? Um, um, um. We don’t want thunder; we want rum;
give us a glass of rum. Um, um, um!”
CHAPTER 123. The Musket.
During the most violent shocks of the Typhoon, the man at the Pequod’s
jaw-bone tiller had several times been reelingly hurled to the deck by
its spasmodic motions, even though preventer tackles had been attached
to it—for they were slack—because some play to the tiller was
indispensable.
In a severe gale like this, while the ship is but a tossed shuttlecock
to the blast, it is by no means uncommon to see the needles in the
compasses, at intervals, go round and round. It was thus with the
Pequod’s; at almost every shock the helmsman had not failed to notice
the whirling velocity with which they revolved upon the cards; it is a
sight that hardly anyone can behold without some sort of unwonted
emotion.
Some hours after midnight, the Typhoon abated so much, that through the
strenuous exertions of Starbuck and Stubb—one engaged forward and the
other aft—the shivered remnants of the jib and fore and main-top-sails
were cut adrift from the spars, and went eddying away to leeward, like
the feathers of an albatross, which sometimes are cast to the winds
when that storm-tossed bird is on the wing.
The three corresponding new sails were now bent and reefed, and a
storm-trysail was set further aft; so that the ship soon went through
the water with some precision again; and the course—for the present,
East-south-east—which he was to steer, if practicable, was once more
given to the helmsman. For during the violence of the gale, he had only
steered according to its vicissitudes. But as he was now bringing the
ship as near her course as possible, watching the compass meanwhile,
lo! a good sign! the wind seemed coming round astern; aye, the foul
breeze became fair!
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