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- now.”
“Sir!—in God’s name!—sir?”
“Well.”
“The anchors are working, sir. Shall I get them inboard?”
“Strike nothing, and stir nothing, but lash everything. The wind rises,
but it has not got up to my table-lands yet. Quick, and see to it.—By
masts and keels! he takes me for the hunch-backed skipper of some
coasting smack. Send down my main-top-sail yard! Ho, gluepots! Loftiest
trucks were made for wildest winds, and this brain-truck of mine now
sails amid the cloud-scud. Shall I strike that? Oh, none but cowards
send down their brain-trucks in tempest time. What a hooroosh aloft
there! I would e’en take it for sublime, did I not know that the colic
is a noisy malady. Oh, take medicine, take medicine!”
CHAPTER 121. Midnight.—The Forecastle Bulwarks.
_Stubb and Flask mounted on them, and passing additional lashings over
the anchors there hanging._
“No, Stubb; you may pound that knot there as much as you please, but
you will never pound into me what you were just now saying. And how
long ago is it since you said the very contrary? Didn’t you once say
that whatever ship Ahab sails in, that ship should pay something extra
on its insurance policy, just as though it were loaded with powder
barrels aft and boxes of lucifers forward? Stop, now; didn’t you say
so?”
“Well, suppose I did? What then? I’ve part changed my flesh since that
time, why not my mind? Besides, supposing we _are_ loaded with powder
barrels aft and lucifers forward; how the devil could the lucifers get
afire in this drenching spray here? Why, my little man, you have pretty
red hair, but you couldn’t get afire now. Shake yourself; you’re
Aquarius, or the water-bearer, Flask; might fill pitchers at your coat
collar. Don’t you see, then, that for these extra risks the Marine
Insurance companies have extra guarantees? Here are hydrants, Flask.
But hark, again, and I’ll answer ye the other thing. First take your
leg off from the crown of the anchor here, though, so I can pass the
rope; now listen. What’s the mighty difference between holding a mast’s
lightning-rod in the storm, and standing close by a mast that hasn’t
got any lightning-rod at all in a storm? Don’t you see, you
timber-head, that no harm can come to the holder of the rod, unless the
mast is first struck? What are you talking about, then? Not one ship in
a hundred carries rods, and Ahab,—aye, man, and all of us,—were in no
more danger then, in my poor opinion, than all the crews in ten
thousand ships now sailing the seas. Why, you King-Post, you, I suppose
you would have every man in the world go about with a small
lightning-rod running up the corner of his hat, like a militia
officer’s skewered feather, and trailing behind like his sash. Why
don’t ye be sensible, Flask? it’s easy to be sensible; why don’t ye,
then? any man with half an eye can be sensible.”
“I don’t know that, Stubb. You sometimes find it rather hard.”
“Yes, when a fellow’s soaked through, it’s hard to be sensible, that’s
a fact. And I am about drenched with this spray. Never mind; catch the
turn there, and pass it. Seems to me we are lashing down these anchors
now as if they were never going to be used again. Tying these two
anchors here, Flask, seems like tying a man’s hands behind him. And
what big generous hands they are, to be sure. These are your iron
fists, hey? What a hold they have, too! I wonder, Flask, whether the
world is anchored anywhere; if she is, she swings with an uncommon long
cable, though. There, hammer that knot down, and we’ve done. So; next
to touching land, lighting on deck is the most satisfactory. I say,
just wring out my jacket skirts, will ye? Thank ye. They laugh at
long-togs so, Flask; but seems to me, a long tailed coat ought always
to be worn in all storms afloat. The tails tapering down that way,
serve to carry off the water, d’ye see. Same with cocked hats; the
cocks form gable-end eave-troughs, Flask. No more monkey-jackets and
tarpaulins for me; I must mount a swallow-tail, and drive down a
beaver; so. Halloa! whew! there goes my tarpaulin overboard; Lord,
Lord, that the winds that come from heaven should be so unmannerly!
This is a nasty night, lad.”
CHAPTER 122. Midnight Aloft.—Thunder and Lightning.
_The main-top-sail yard_.—_Tashtego passing new lashings around it_.
“Um, um, um. Stop that thunder! Plenty too much thunder up here. What’s
the use of thunder? Um, um, um. We don’t want thunder; we want rum;
give us a glass of rum. Um, um, um!”
CHAPTER 123. The Musket.
During the most violent shocks of the Typhoon, the man at the Pequod’s
jaw-bone tiller had several times been reelingly hurled to the deck by
its spasmodic motions, even though preventer tackles had been attached
to it—for they were slack—because some play to the tiller was
indispensable.
In a severe gale like this, while the ship is but a tossed shuttlecock
to the blast, it is by no means uncommon to see the needles in the
compasses, at intervals, go round and round. It was thus with the
Pequod’s; at almost every shock the helmsman had not failed to notice
the whirling velocity with which they revolved upon the cards; it is a
sight that hardly anyone can behold without some sort of unwonted
emotion.
Some hours after midnight, the Typhoon abated so much, that through the
strenuous exertions of Starbuck and Stubb—one engaged forward and the
other aft—the shivered remnants of the jib and fore and main-top-sails
were cut adrift from the spars, and went eddying away to leeward, like
the feathers of an albatross, which sometimes are cast to the winds
when that storm-tossed bird is on the wing.
The three corresponding new sails were now bent and reefed, and a
storm-trysail was set further aft; so that the ship soon went through
the water with some precision again; and the course—for the present,
East-south-east—which he was to steer, if practicable, was once more
given to the helmsman. For during the violence of the gale, he had only
steered according to its vicissitudes. But as he was now bringing the
ship as near her course as possible, watching the compass meanwhile,
lo! a good sign! the wind seemed coming round astern; aye, the foul
breeze became fair!
Instantly the yards were squared, to the lively song of “_Ho! the fair
wind! oh-ye-ho, cheerly men!_” the crew singing for joy, that so
promising an event should so soon have falsified the evil portents
preceding it.
In compliance with the standing order of his commander—to report
immediately, and at any one of the twenty-four hours, any decided
change in the affairs of the deck,—Starbuck had no sooner trimmed the
yards to the breeze—however reluctantly and gloomily,—than he
mechanically went below to apprise Captain Ahab of the circumstance.
Ere knocking at his state-room, he involuntarily paused before it a
moment. The cabin lamp—taking long swings this way and that—was burning
fitfully, and casting fitful shadows upon the old man’s bolted door,—a
thin one, with fixed blinds inserted, in place of upper panels. The
isolated subterraneousness of the cabin made a certain humming silence
to reign there, though it was hooped round by all the roar of the
elements. The loaded muskets in the rack were shiningly revealed, as
they stood upright against the forward bulkhead. Starbuck was an
honest, upright man; but out of Starbuck’s heart, at that instant when
he saw the muskets, there strangely evolved an evil thought; but so
blent with its neutral or good accompaniments that for the instant he
hardly knew it for itself.
“He would have shot me once,” he murmured, “yes, there’s the very
musket that he pointed at me;—that one with the studded stock; let me
touch it—lift it. Strange, that I, who have handled so many deadly
lances, strange, that I should shake so now. Loaded? I must see. Aye,
aye; and powder in the pan;—that’s not good. Best spill it?—wait.