- end_line
- 18787
- extracted_at
- 2026-01-18T02:42:21.449Z
- extracted_by
- structure-extraction-lambda
- start_line
- 18712
- text
- yet hate thee, that thou can’st not go mad?—What wert thou making
there?”
“Welding an old pike-head, sir; there were seams and dents in it.”
“And can’st thou make it all smooth again, blacksmith, after such hard
usage as it had?”
“I think so, sir.”
“And I suppose thou can’st smoothe almost any seams and dents; never
mind how hard the metal, blacksmith?”
“Aye, sir, I think I can; all seams and dents but one.”
“Look ye here, then,” cried Ahab, passionately advancing, and leaning
with both hands on Perth’s shoulders; “look ye here—_here_—can ye
smoothe out a seam like this, blacksmith,” sweeping one hand across his
ribbed brow; “if thou could’st, blacksmith, glad enough would I lay my
head upon thy anvil, and feel thy heaviest hammer between my eyes.
Answer! Can’st thou smoothe this seam?”
“Oh! that is the one, sir! Said I not all seams and dents but one?”
“Aye, blacksmith, it is the one; aye, man, it is unsmoothable; for
though thou only see’st it here in my flesh, it has worked down into
the bone of my skull—_that_ is all wrinkles! But, away with child’s
play; no more gaffs and pikes to-day. Look ye here!” jingling the
leathern bag, as if it were full of gold coins. “I, too, want a harpoon
made; one that a thousand yoke of fiends could not part, Perth;
something that will stick in a whale like his own fin-bone. There’s the
stuff,” flinging the pouch upon the anvil. “Look ye, blacksmith, these
are the gathered nail-stubbs of the steel shoes of racing horses.”
“Horse-shoe stubbs, sir? Why, Captain Ahab, thou hast here, then, the
best and stubbornest stuff we blacksmiths ever work.”
“I know it, old man; these stubbs will weld together like glue from the
melted bones of murderers. Quick! forge me the harpoon. And forge me
first, twelve rods for its shank; then wind, and twist, and hammer
these twelve together like the yarns and strands of a tow-line. Quick!
I’ll blow the fire.”
When at last the twelve rods were made, Ahab tried them, one by one, by
spiralling them, with his own hand, round a long, heavy iron bolt. “A
flaw!” rejecting the last one. “Work that over again, Perth.”
This done, Perth was about to begin welding the twelve into one, when
Ahab stayed his hand, and said he would weld his own iron. As, then,
with regular, gasping hems, he hammered on the anvil, Perth passing to
him the glowing rods, one after the other, and the hard pressed forge
shooting up its intense straight flame, the Parsee passed silently, and
bowing over his head towards the fire, seemed invoking some curse or
some blessing on the toil. But, as Ahab looked up, he slid aside.
“What’s that bunch of lucifers dodging about there for?” muttered
Stubb, looking on from the forecastle. “That Parsee smells fire like a
fusee; and smells of it himself, like a hot musket’s powder-pan.”
At last the shank, in one complete rod, received its final heat; and as
Perth, to temper it, plunged it all hissing into the cask of water near
by, the scalding steam shot up into Ahab’s bent face.
“Would’st thou brand me, Perth?” wincing for a moment with the pain;
“have I been but forging my own branding-iron, then?”
“Pray God, not that; yet I fear something, Captain Ahab. Is not this
harpoon for the White Whale?”
“For the white fiend! But now for the barbs; thou must make them
thyself, man. Here are my razors—the best of steel; here, and make the
barbs sharp as the needle-sleet of the Icy Sea.”
For a moment, the old blacksmith eyed the razors as though he would
fain not use them.
- title
- Chunk 2