Moby Dick

"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.

"But there was more than this:  the order about the shovel was almost
as plainly meant to sting and insult Steelkilt, as though Radney
had spat in his face.  Any man who has gone sailor in a whale-ship
will understand this; and all this and doubtless much more,
the Lakeman fully comprehended when the mate uttered his command.
But as he sat still for a moment, and as he steadfastly
looked into the mate's malignant eye and perceived the stacks
of powder-casks heaped up in him and the slow-match silently
burning along towards them; as he instinctively saw all this,
that strange forbearance and unwillingness to stir up the deeper
passionateness in any already ireful being--a repugnance most felt,
when felt at all, by really valiant men even when aggrieved--
this nameless phantom feeling, gentlemen, stole over Steelkilt.

"Therefore, in his ordinary tone, only a little broken by the bodily
exhaustion he was temporarily in, he answered him saying that
sweeping the deck was not his business, and he would not do it.
And then, without at all alluding to the shovel, he pointed
to three lads, as the customary sweepers; who, not being
billeted at the pumps, had done little or nothing all day.
To this, Radney replied, with an oath, in a most domineering
and outrageous manner unconditionally reiterating his command;
meanwhile advancing upon the still seated Lakeman, with an uplifted
cooper's club hammer which he had snatched from a cask near by.

"Heated and irritated as he was by his spasmodic toil at the pumps,
for all his first nameless feeling of forbearance the sweating
Steelkilt could but ill brook this bearing in the mate;
but somehow still smothering the conflagration within him,
without speaking he remained doggedly rooted to his seat,
till at last the incensed Radney shook the hammer within a few
inches of his face, furiously commanding him to do his bidding.

"Steelkilt rose, and slowly retreating round the windlass,
steadily followed by the mate with his menacing hammer,
deliberately repeated his intention not to obey.  Seeing, however,
that his forbearance had not the slightest effect, by an awful
and unspeakable intimation with his twisted hand he warned off
the foolish and infatuated man; but it was to no purpose.
And in this way the two went once slowly round the windlass;
when, resolved at last no longer to retreat, bethinking him
that he had now forborne as much as comported with his humor,
the Lakeman paused on the hatches and thus spoke to the officer:

"'Mr. Radney, I will not obey you.  Take that hammer away, or look
to yourself.'  But the predestinated mate coming still closer to him,
where the Lakeman stood fixed, now shook the heavy hammer within an inch
of his teeth; meanwhile repeating a string of insufferable maledictions.
Retreating not the thousandth part of an inch; stabbing him in the eye
with the unflinching poniard of his glance, Steelkilt, clenching his
right hand behind him and creepingly drawing it back, told his persecutor
that if the hammer but grazed his cheek he (Steelkilt) would murder him.
But, gentlemen, the fool had been branded for the slaughter by the gods.
Immediately the hammer touched the cheek; the next instant the lower
jaw of the mate was stove in his head; he fell on the hatch spouting
blood like a whale.

"Ere the cry could go aft Steelkilt was shaking one of the backstays
leading far aloft to where two of his comrades were standing
their mastheads.  They were both Canallers.

"'Canallers!' cried Don Pedro.  'We have seen many whaleships
in our harbors, but never heard of your Canallers.  Pardon:  who and
what are they?'

"'Canallers, Don, are the boatmen belonging to our grand
Erie Canal.  You must have heard of it.'

"'Nay, Senor; hereabouts in this dull, warm, most lazy,
and hereditary land, we know but little of your vigorous North.'

"'Aye?  Well then, Don, refill my cup.  Your chicha's very fine;
and ere proceeding further I will tell ye what our Canallers are;
for such information may throw side-light upon my story.'