Moby Dick

white whale.  Look ye! d'ye see this Spanish ounce of gold?"--holding up
a broad bright coin to the sun--"it is a sixteen dollar piece, men.
D'ye see it?  Mr. Starbuck, hand me yon top-maul."

While the mate was getting the hammer, Ahab, without speaking,
was slowly rubbing the gold piece against the skirts of his jacket,
as if to heighten its lustre, and without using any words was
meanwhile lowly humming to himself, producing a sound so strangely
muffled and inarticulate that it seemed the mechanical humming
of the wheels of his vitality in him.

Receiving the top-maul from Starbuck, he advanced towards the main-mast
with the hammer uplifted in one hand, exhibiting the gold with the other,
and with a high raised voice exclaiming:  "Whosoever of ye raises
me a white-headed whale with a wrinkled brow and a crooked jaw;
whosoever of ye raises me that white-headed whale, with three holes
punctured in his starboard fluke--look ye, whosoever of ye raises me
that same white whale, he shall have this gold ounce, my boys!"

"Huzza! huzza!" cried the seamen, as with swinging tarpaulins
they hailed the act of nailing the gold to the mast.

"It's a white whale, I say," resumed Ahab, as he threw down the topmaul:
"a white whale.  Skin your eyes for him, men; look sharp for white water;
if ye see but a bubble, sing out."

All this while Tashtego, Daggoo, and Queequeg had looked on with even
more intense interest and surprise than the rest, and at the mention
of the wrinkled brow and crooked jaw they had started as if each was
separately touched by some specific recollection.

"Captain Ahab," said Tashtego, "that white whale must be the same
that some call Moby Dick."

"Moby Dick?" shouted Ahab.  "Do ye know the white whale then, Tash?"

"Does he fan-tail a little curious, sir, before he goes down?"
said the Gay-Header deliberately.

"And has he a curious spout, too," said Daggoo, "very bushy,
even for a parmacetty, and mighty quick, Captain Ahab?"

"And he have one, two, tree--oh! good many iron in him hide,
too, Captain," cried Queequeg disjointedly, "all twiske-tee be-twisk,
like him--him-" faltering hard for a word, and screwing his hand
round and round as though uncorking a bottle--"like him--him-"

"Corkscrew!" cried Ahab, "aye, Queequeg, the harpoons lie
all twisted and wrenched in him; aye, Daggoo, his spout is
a big one, like a whole shock of wheat, and white as a pile
of our Nantucket wool after the great annual sheep-shearing;
aye, Tashtego, and he fan-tails like a split jib in a squall.
Death and devils! men, it is Moby Dick ye have seen--
Moby Dick--Moby Dick!"

"Captain Ahab," said Starbuck, who, with Stubb and Flask, had thus
far been eyeing his superior with increasing surprise, but at last
seemed struck with a thought which somewhat explained all the wonder.
"Captain Ahab, I have heard of Moby Dick--but it was not Moby Dick
that took off thy leg?"

"Who told thee that?" cried Ahab; then pausing, "Aye, Starbuck;
aye, my hearties all round; it was Moby Dick that dismasted me;
Moby Dick that brought me to this dead stump I stand on now.
Aye, aye," he shouted with a terrific, loud, animal sob, like that of
a heart-stricken moose; "Aye, aye! it was that accursed white whale
that razeed me; made a poor pegging lubber of me for ever and a day!"
Then tossing both arms, with measureless imprecations he shouted out:
"Aye, aye! and I'll chase him round Good Hope, and round the Horn,
and round the Norway Maelstrom, and round perdition's flames
before I give him up.  And this is what ye have shipped for,
men! to chase that white whale on both sides of land, and over all
sides of earth, till he spouts black blood and rolls fin out.
What say ye, men, will ye splice hands on it, now?  I think ye
do look brave."

"Aye, aye!" shouted the harpooneers and seamen, running closer
to the excited old man:  "A sharp eye for the White Whale;
a sharp lance for Moby Dick!"

"God bless ye," he seemed to half sob and half shout.
"God bless ye, men.  Steward! go draw the great measure of grog.
But what's this long face about, Mr. Starbuck; wilt thou not
chase the white whale! art not game for Moby Dick?"

"I am game for his crooked jaw, and for the jaws of Death too,
Captain Ahab, if it fairly comes in the way of the business we follow;
but I came here to hunt whales, not my commander's vengeance.
How many barrels will thy vengeance yield thee even if thou gettest it,
Captain Ahab? it will not fetch thee much in our Nantucket market."

"Nantucket market!  Hoot!  But come closer, Starbuck;
thou requirest a little lower layer.  If money's to be
the measurer, man, and the accountants have computed their
great counting-house the globe, by girdling it with guineas,
one to every three parts of an inch; then, let me tell thee,
that my vengeance will fetch a great premium here!"

"He smites his chest," whispered Stubb, "what's that for? methinks it
rings most vast, but hollow."