- char_end
- 569800
- char_start
- 561847
- chunk_index
- 79
- chunk_total
- 178
- estimated_tokens
- 1989
- source_file_key
- moby-dick
- text
- under the long-flung shadow, and the snug patronising lee of churches.
For by some curious fatality, as it is often noted of your metropolitan
freebooters that they ever encamp around the halls of justice, so
sinners, gentlemen, most abound in holiest vicinities.
“‘Is that a friar passing?’ said Don Pedro, looking downwards into the
crowded plazza, with humorous concern.
“‘Well for our northern friend, Dame Isabella’s Inquisition wanes in
Lima,’ laughed Don Sebastian. ‘Proceed, Senor.’
“‘A moment! Pardon!’ cried another of the company. ‘In the name of all
us Limeese, I but desire to express to you, sir sailor, that we have by
no means overlooked your delicacy in not substituting present Lima for
distant Venice in your corrupt comparison. Oh! do not bow and look
surprised; you know the proverb all along this coast—“Corrupt as Lima.”
It but bears out your saying, too; churches more plentiful than
billiard-tables, and for ever open—and “Corrupt as Lima.” So, too,
Venice; I have been there; the holy city of the blessed evangelist, St.
Mark!—St. Dominic, purge it! Your cup! Thanks: here I refill; now, you
pour out again.’
“Freely depicted in his own vocation, gentlemen, the Canaller would
make a fine dramatic hero, so abundantly and picturesquely wicked is
he. Like Mark Antony, for days and days along his green-turfed, flowery
Nile, he indolently floats, openly toying with his red-cheeked
Cleopatra, ripening his apricot thigh upon the sunny deck. But ashore,
all this effeminacy is dashed. The brigandish guise which the Canaller
so proudly sports; his slouched and gaily-ribboned hat betoken his
grand features. A terror to the smiling innocence of the villages
through which he floats; his swart visage and bold swagger are not
unshunned in cities. Once a vagabond on his own canal, I have received
good turns from one of these Canallers; I thank him heartily; would
fain be not ungrateful; but it is often one of the prime redeeming
qualities of your man of violence, that at times he has as stiff an arm
to back a poor stranger in a strait, as to plunder a wealthy one. In
sum, gentlemen, what the wildness of this canal life is, is
emphatically evinced by this; that our wild whale-fishery contains so
many of its most finished graduates, and that scarce any race of
mankind, except Sydney men, are so much distrusted by our whaling
captains. Nor does it at all diminish the curiousness of this matter,
that to many thousands of our rural boys and young men born along its
line, the probationary life of the Grand Canal furnishes the sole
transition between quietly reaping in a Christian corn-field, and
recklessly ploughing the waters of the most barbaric seas.
“‘I see! I see!’ impetuously exclaimed Don Pedro, spilling his chicha
upon his silvery ruffles. ‘No need to travel! The world’s one Lima. I
had thought, now, that at your temperate North the generations were
cold and holy as the hills.—But the story.’
“I left off, gentlemen, where the Lakeman shook the backstay. Hardly
had he done so, when he was surrounded by the three junior mates and
the four harpooneers, who all crowded him to the deck. But sliding down
the ropes like baleful comets, the two Canallers rushed into the
uproar, and sought to drag their man out of it towards the forecastle.
Others of the sailors joined with them in this attempt, and a twisted
turmoil ensued; while standing out of harm’s way, the valiant captain
danced up and down with a whale-pike, calling upon his officers to
manhandle that atrocious scoundrel, and smoke him along to the
quarter-deck. At intervals, he ran close up to the revolving border of
the confusion, and prying into the heart of it with his pike, sought to
prick out the object of his resentment. But Steelkilt and his
desperadoes were too much for them all; they succeeded in gaining the
forecastle deck, where, hastily slewing about three or four large casks
in a line with the windlass, these sea-Parisians entrenched themselves
behind the barricade.
“‘Come out of that, ye pirates!’ roared the captain, now menacing them
with a pistol in each hand, just brought to him by the steward. ‘Come
out of that, ye cut-throats!’
“Steelkilt leaped on the barricade, and striding up and down there,
defied the worst the pistols could do; but gave the captain to
understand distinctly, that his (Steelkilt’s) death would be the signal
for a murderous mutiny on the part of all hands. Fearing in his heart
lest this might prove but too true, the captain a little desisted, but
still commanded the insurgents instantly to return to their duty.
“‘Will you promise not to touch us, if we do?’ demanded their
ringleader.
“‘Turn to! turn to!—I make no promise;—to your duty! Do you want to
sink the ship, by knocking off at a time like this? Turn to!’ and he
once more raised a pistol.
“‘Sink the ship?’ cried Steelkilt. ‘Aye, let her sink. Not a man of us
turns to, unless you swear not to raise a rope-yarn against us. What
say ye, men?’ turning to his comrades. A fierce cheer was their
response.
“The Lakeman now patrolled the barricade, all the while keeping his eye
on the Captain, and jerking out such sentences as these:—‘It’s not our
fault; we didn’t want it; I told him to take his hammer away; it was
boy’s business; he might have known me before this; I told him not to
prick the buffalo; I believe I have broken a finger here against his
cursed jaw; ain’t those mincing knives down in the forecastle there,
men? look to those handspikes, my hearties. Captain, by God, look to
yourself; say the word; don’t be a fool; forget it all; we are ready to
turn to; treat us decently, and we’re your men; but we won’t be
flogged.’
“‘Turn to! I make no promises, turn to, I say!’
“‘Look ye, now,’ cried the Lakeman, flinging out his arm towards him,
‘there are a few of us here (and I am one of them) who have shipped for
the cruise, d’ye see; now as you well know, sir, we can claim our
discharge as soon as the anchor is down; so we don’t want a row; it’s
not our interest; we want to be peaceable; we are ready to work, but we
won’t be flogged.’
“‘Turn to!’ roared the Captain.
“Steelkilt glanced round him a moment, and then said:—‘I tell you what
it is now, Captain, rather than kill ye, and be hung for such a shabby
rascal, we won’t lift a hand against ye unless ye attack us; but till
you say the word about not flogging us, we don’t do a hand’s turn.’
“‘Down into the forecastle then, down with ye, I’ll keep ye there till
ye’re sick of it. Down ye go.’
“‘Shall we?’ cried the ringleader to his men. Most of them were against
it; but at length, in obedience to Steelkilt, they preceded him down
into their dark den, growlingly disappearing, like bears into a cave.
“As the Lakeman’s bare head was just level with the planks, the Captain
and his posse leaped the barricade, and rapidly drawing over the slide
of the scuttle, planted their group of hands upon it, and loudly called
for the steward to bring the heavy brass padlock belonging to the
companionway. Then opening the slide a little, the Captain whispered
something down the crack, closed it, and turned the key upon them—ten
in number—leaving on deck some twenty or more, who thus far had
remained neutral.
“All night a wide-awake watch was kept by all the officers, forward and
aft, especially about the forecastle scuttle and fore hatchway; at
which last place it was feared the insurgents might emerge, after
breaking through the bulkhead below. But the hours of darkness passed
in peace; the men who still remained at their duty toiling hard at the
pumps, whose clinking and clanking at intervals through the dreary
night dismally resounded through the ship.
“At sunrise the Captain went forward, and knocking on the deck,
summoned the prisoners to work; but with a yell they refused.