Moby Dick

"Poor fellow! poor fellow! and from his wife," sighed Mayhew;
"but let me have it."

"Nay, keep it thyself," cried Gabriel to Ahab; "thou art soon
going that way."

"Curses throttle thee!" yelled Ahab.  "Captain Mayhew,
stand by now to receive it"; and taking the fatal missive
from Starbuck's hands, he caught it in the slit of the pole,
and reached it over towards the boat.  But as he did so,
the oarsmen expectantly desisted from rowing; the boat drifted
a little towards the ship's stern; so that, as if by magic,
the letter suddenly ranged along with Gabriel's eager hand.
He clutched it in an instant, seized the boat-knife, and impaling
the letter on it, sent it thus loaded back into the ship.
It fell at Ahab's feet.  Then Gabriel shrieked out to his comrades
to give way with their oars, and in that manner the mutinous
boat rapidly shot away from the Pequod.

As, after this interlude, the seamen resumed their work upon
the jacket of the whale, many strange things were hinted
in reference to this wild affair.



CHAPTER 72

The Monkey-Rope


In the tumultuous business of cutting-in and attending to a whale,
there is much running backwards and forwards among the crew.
Now hands are wanted here, and then again hands are wanted there.
There is no staying in any one place; for at one and the same
time everything has to be done everywhere.  It is much
the same with him who endeavors the description of the scene.
We must now retrace our way a little.  It was mentioned that upon
first breaking ground in the whale's back, the blubber-hook was
inserted into the original hole there cut by the spades of the mates.
But how did so clumsy and weighty a mass as that same hook get
fixed in that hole?  It was inserted there by my particular
friend Queequeg, whose duty it was, as harpooneer, to descend
upon the monster's back for the special purpose referred to.
But in very many cases, circumstances require that the harpooneer
shall remain on the whale till the whole tensing or stripping
operation is concluded.  The whale, be it observed, lies almost
entirely submerged, excepting the immediate parts operated upon.
So down there, some ten feet below the level of the deck, the poor
harpooneer flounders about, half on the whale and half in the water,
as the vast mass revolves like a tread-mill beneath him.
On the occasion in question, Queequeg figured in the Highland costume--
a shirt and socks--in which to my eyes, at least, he appeared to
uncommon advantage; and no one had a better chance to observe him,
as will presently be seen.

Being the savage's bowsman, that is, the person who pulled
the bow-oar in his boat (the second one from forward),
it was my cheerful duty to attend upon him while taking
that hard-scrabble scramble upon the dead whale's back.
You have seen Italian organ-boys holding a dancing-ape by a long cord.
Just so, from the ship's steep side, did I hold Queequeg down
there in the sea, by what is technically called in the fishery
a monkey-rope, attached to a strong strip of canvas belted
round his waist.

It was a humorously perilous business for both of us.  For, before we
proceed further, it must be said that the monkey-rope was fast at
both ends; fast to Queequeg's broad canvas belt, and fast to my narrow
leather one.  So that for better or for worse, we two, for the time,
were wedded; and should poor Queequeg sink to rise no more, then both
usage and honor demanded, that instead of cutting the cord, it should drag
me down in his wake.  So, then, an elongated Siamese ligature united us.
Queequeg was my own inseparable twin brother; nor could I any way get
rid of the dangerous liabilities which the hempen bond entailed.

So strongly and metaphysically did I conceive of my situation then,
that while earnestly watching his motions, I seemed distinctly
to perceive that my own individuality was now merged in a
joint stock company of two; that my free will had received
a mortal wound; and that another's mistake or misfortune
might plunge innocent me into unmerited disaster and death.
Therefore, I saw that here was a sort of interregnum in Providence;
for its even-handed equity never could have so gross an injustice.
And yet still further pondering--while I jerked him now and
then from between the whale and ship, which would threaten
to jam him--still further pondering, I say, I saw that this
situation of mine was the precise situation of every mortal
that breathes; only, in most cases, he, one way or other,
has this Siamese connexion with a plurality of other mortals.
If your banker breaks, you snap; if your apothecary by mistake
sends you poison in your pills, you die.  True, you may
say that, by exceeding caution, you may possibly escape
these and the multitudinous other evil chances of life.
But handle Queequeg's monkey-rope heedfully as I would,
sometimes he jerked it so, that I came very near sliding overboard.
Nor could I possibly forget that, do what I would, I only had
the management of one end of it.*