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- 9917
- extracted_at
- 2026-01-23T15:41:03.440Z
- extracted_by
- structure-extraction-lambda
- start_line
- 9858
- text
- head like a Roman, and a flowing golden beard like the tasseled
housings of your last viceroy’s snorting charger; and a brain, and a
heart, and a soul in him, gentlemen, which had made Steelkilt
Charlemagne, had he been born son to Charlemagne’s father. But Radney,
the mate, was ugly as a mule; yet as hardy, as stubborn, as malicious.
He did not love Steelkilt, and Steelkilt knew it.
“Espying the mate drawing near as he was toiling at the pump with the
rest, the Lakeman affected not to notice him, but unawed, went on with
his gay banterings.
“‘Aye, aye, my merry lads, it’s a lively leak this; hold a cannikin,
one of ye, and let’s have a taste. By the Lord, it’s worth bottling! I
tell ye what, men, old Rad’s investment must go for it! he had best cut
away his part of the hull and tow it home. The fact is, boys, that
sword-fish only began the job; he’s come back again with a gang of
ship-carpenters, saw-fish, and file-fish, and what not; and the whole
posse of ’em are now hard at work cutting and slashing at the bottom;
making improvements, I suppose. If old Rad were here now, I’d tell him
to jump overboard and scatter ’em. They’re playing the devil with his
estate, I can tell him. But he’s a simple old soul,—Rad, and a beauty
too. Boys, they say the rest of his property is invested in
looking-glasses. I wonder if he’d give a poor devil like me the model
of his nose.’
“‘Damn your eyes! what’s that pump stopping for?’ roared Radney,
pretending not to have heard the sailors’ talk. ‘Thunder away at it!’
“‘Aye, aye, sir,’ said Steelkilt, merry as a cricket. ‘Lively, boys,
lively, now!’ And with that the pump clanged like fifty fire-engines;
the men tossed their hats off to it, and ere long that peculiar gasping
of the lungs was heard which denotes the fullest tension of life’s
utmost energies.
“Quitting the pump at last, with the rest of his band, the Lakeman went
forward all panting, and sat himself down on the windlass; his face
fiery red, his eyes bloodshot, and wiping the profuse sweat from his
brow. Now what cozening fiend it was, gentlemen, that possessed Radney
to meddle with such a man in that corporeally exasperated state, I know
not; but so it happened. Intolerably striding along the deck, the mate
commanded him to get a broom and sweep down the planks, and also a
shovel, and remove some offensive matters consequent upon allowing a
pig to run at large.
“Now, gentlemen, sweeping a ship’s deck at sea is a piece of household
work which in all times but raging gales is regularly attended to every
evening; it has been known to be done in the case of ships actually
foundering at the time. Such, gentlemen, is the inflexibility of
sea-usages and the instinctive love of neatness in seamen; some of whom
would not willingly drown without first washing their faces. But in all
vessels this broom business is the prescriptive province of the boys,
if boys there be aboard. Besides, it was the stronger men in the
Town-Ho that had been divided into gangs, taking turns at the pumps;
and being the most athletic seaman of them all, Steelkilt had been
regularly assigned captain of one of the gangs; consequently he should
have been freed from any trivial business not connected with truly
nautical duties, such being the case with his comrades. I mention all
these particulars so that you may understand exactly how this affair
stood between the two men.
- title
- Chunk 3