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- unusual; the only strange thing about them seemed to be, that Starbuck,
almost the one only man who had ever ventured to oppose him with
anything in the slightest degree approaching to decision—one of those
too, whose faithfulness on the look-out he had seemed to doubt
somewhat;—it was strange, that this was the very man he should select
for his watchman; freely giving his whole life into such an otherwise
distrusted person’s hands.
Now, the first time Ahab was perched aloft; ere he had been there ten
minutes; one of those red-billed savage sea-hawks which so often fly
incommodiously close round the manned mast-heads of whalemen in these
latitudes; one of these birds came wheeling and screaming round his
head in a maze of untrackably swift circlings. Then it darted a
thousand feet straight up into the air; then spiralized downwards, and
went eddying again round his head.
But with his gaze fixed upon the dim and distant horizon, Ahab seemed
not to mark this wild bird; nor, indeed, would any one else have marked
it much, it being no uncommon circumstance; only now almost the least
heedful eye seemed to see some sort of cunning meaning in almost every
sight.
“Your hat, your hat, sir!” suddenly cried the Sicilian seaman, who
being posted at the mizen-mast-head, stood directly behind Ahab, though
somewhat lower than his level, and with a deep gulf of air dividing
them.
But already the sable wing was before the old man’s eyes; the long
hooked bill at his head: with a scream, the black hawk darted away with
his prize.
An eagle flew thrice round Tarquin’s head, removing his cap to replace
it, and thereupon Tanaquil, his wife, declared that Tarquin would be
king of Rome. But only by the replacing of the cap was that omen
accounted good. Ahab’s hat was never restored; the wild hawk flew on
and on with it; far in advance of the prow: and at last disappeared;
while from the point of that disappearance, a minute black spot was
dimly discerned, falling from that vast height into the sea.
CHAPTER 131. The Pequod Meets The Delight.
The intense Pequod sailed on; the rolling waves and days went by; the
life-buoy-coffin still lightly swung; and another ship, most miserably
misnamed the Delight, was descried. As she drew nigh, all eyes were
fixed upon her broad beams, called shears, which, in some
whaling-ships, cross the quarter-deck at the height of eight or nine
feet; serving to carry the spare, unrigged, or disabled boats.
Upon the stranger’s shears were beheld the shattered, white ribs, and
some few splintered planks, of what had once been a whale-boat; but you
now saw through this wreck, as plainly as you see through the peeled,
half-unhinged, and bleaching skeleton of a horse.
“Hast seen the White Whale?”
“Look!” replied the hollow-cheeked captain from his taffrail; and with
his trumpet he pointed to the wreck.
“Hast killed him?”
“The harpoon is not yet forged that ever will do that,” answered the
other, sadly glancing upon a rounded hammock on the deck, whose
gathered sides some noiseless sailors were busy in sewing together.
“Not forged!” and snatching Perth’s levelled iron from the crotch, Ahab
held it out, exclaiming—“Look ye, Nantucketer; here in this hand I hold
his death! Tempered in blood, and tempered by lightning are these
barbs; and I swear to temper them triply in that hot place behind the
fin, where the White Whale most feels his accursed life!”
“Then God keep thee, old man—see’st thou that”—pointing to the
hammock—“I bury but one of five stout men, who were alive only
yesterday; but were dead ere night. Only _that_ one I bury; the rest
were buried before they died; you sail upon their tomb.” Then turning
to his crew—“Are ye ready there? place the plank then on the rail, and
lift the body; so, then—Oh! God”—advancing towards the hammock with
uplifted hands—“may the resurrection and the life——”
- title
- Chunk 17