- end_line
- 20290
- extracted_at
- 2026-01-30T20:49:30.774Z
- extracted_by
- structure-extraction-lambda
- start_line
- 20223
- text
- “I will wager something now,” whispered Stubb to Flask, “that some one
in that missing boat wore off that Captain’s best coat; mayhap, his
watch—he’s so cursed anxious to get it back. Who ever heard of two
pious whale-ships cruising after one missing whale-boat in the height
of the whaling season? See, Flask, only see how pale he looks—pale in
the very buttons of his eyes—look—it wasn’t the coat—it must have been
the—”
“My boy, my own boy is among them. For God’s sake—I beg, I
conjure”—here exclaimed the stranger Captain to Ahab, who thus far had
but icily received his petition. “For eight-and-forty hours let me
charter your ship—I will gladly pay for it, and roundly pay for it—if
there be no other way—for eight-and-forty hours only—only that—you
must, oh, you must, and you _shall_ do this thing.”
“His son!” cried Stubb, “oh, it’s his son he’s lost! I take back the
coat and watch—what says Ahab? We must save that boy.”
“He’s drowned with the rest on ’em, last night,” said the old Manx
sailor standing behind them; “I heard; all of ye heard their spirits.”
Now, as it shortly turned out, what made this incident of the Rachel’s
the more melancholy, was the circumstance, that not only was one of the
Captain’s sons among the number of the missing boat’s crew; but among
the number of the other boat’s crews, at the same time, but on the
other hand, separated from the ship during the dark vicissitudes of the
chase, there had been still another son; as that for a time, the
wretched father was plunged to the bottom of the cruellest perplexity;
which was only solved for him by his chief mate’s instinctively
adopting the ordinary procedure of a whale-ship in such emergencies,
that is, when placed between jeopardized but divided boats, always to
pick up the majority first. But the captain, for some unknown
constitutional reason, had refrained from mentioning all this, and not
till forced to it by Ahab’s iciness did he allude to his one yet
missing boy; a little lad, but twelve years old, whose father with the
earnest but unmisgiving hardihood of a Nantucketer’s paternal love, had
thus early sought to initiate him in the perils and wonders of a
vocation almost immemorially the destiny of all his race. Nor does it
unfrequently occur, that Nantucket captains will send a son of such
tender age away from them, for a protracted three or four years’ voyage
in some other ship than their own; so that their first knowledge of a
whaleman’s career shall be unenervated by any chance display of a
father’s natural but untimely partiality, or undue apprehensiveness and
concern.
Meantime, now the stranger was still beseeching his poor boon of Ahab;
and Ahab still stood like an anvil, receiving every shock, but without
the least quivering of his own.
“I will not go,” said the stranger, “till you say _aye_ to me. Do to me
as you would have me do to you in the like case. For _you_ too have a
boy, Captain Ahab—though but a child, and nestling safely at home now—a
child of your old age too—Yes, yes, you relent; I see it—run, run, men,
now, and stand by to square in the yards.”
“Avast,” cried Ahab—“touch not a rope-yarn”; then in a voice that
prolongingly moulded every word—“Captain Gardiner, I will not do it.
Even now I lose time. Good-bye, good-bye. God bless ye, man, and may I
forgive myself, but I must go. Mr. Starbuck, look at the binnacle
watch, and in three minutes from this present instant warn off all
strangers: then brace forward again, and let the ship sail as before.”
Hurriedly turning, with averted face, he descended into his cabin,
leaving the strange captain transfixed at this unconditional and utter
rejection of his so earnest suit. But starting from his enchantment,
Gardiner silently hurried to the side; more fell than stepped into his
boat, and returned to his ship.
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- Chunk 2