Moby Dick

But even with a broken bone, old Ahab is untouched; and I account
no living bone of mine one jot more me, than this dead one
that's lost.  Nor white whale, nor man, nor fiend, can so much
as graze old Ahab in his own proper and inaccessible being.
Can any lead touch yonder floor, any mast scrape yonder roof?--
Aloft there! which way?"

"Dead to leeward, sir."

"Up helm, then; pile on the sail again, ship keepers! down
the rest of the spare boats and rig them--Mr. Starbuck away,
and muster the boat's crews."

"Let me first help thee towards the bulwarks, sir."

"Oh, oh, oh! how this splinter gores me now!  Accursed fate!
that the unconquerable captain in the soul should have such
a craven mate!"

"Sir?"

"My body, man, not thee.  Give me something for a cane--there, that
shivered lance will do.  Muster the men.  Surely I have not seen him yet.
By heaven it cannot be!--missing?--quick! call them all."

The old man's hinted thought was true.  Upon mustering the company,
the Parsee was not there.

"The Parsee!" cried Stubb--"he must have been caught in-"

"The black vomit wrench thee!--run all of ye above,
alow, cabin, forecastle--find him--not gone--not gone!"

But quickly they returned to him with the tidings that the Parsee
was nowhere to be found.

"Aye, sir," said Stubb--"caught among the tangles of your line--
I thought I saw him dragging under."

"My line! my line?  Gone?--gone?  What means that little word?--
What death-knell rings in it, that old Ahab shakes as if he were
the belfry.  The harpoon, too!--toss over the litter there,--
d'ye see it?--the forged iron, men, the white whale's--no, no, no,--
blistered fool; this hand did dart it!--'tis in the fish!--Aloft there!
Keep him nailed-Quick!--all hands to the rigging of the boats--
collect the oars--harpooneers! the irons, the irons!--hoist the
royals higher--a pull on all the sheets!--helm there! steady,
steady for your life!  I'll ten times girdle the unmeasured globe;
yea and dive straight through it, but I'll slay him yet!

"Great God! but for one single instant show thyself,"
cried Starbuck; "never, never wilt thou capture him, old man--
In Jesus' name no more of this, that's worse than devil's madness.
Two days chased; twice stove to splinters; thy very leg once
more snatched from under thee; thy evil shadow gone--all good
angels mobbing thee with warnings:--what more wouldst thou have?--
Shall we keep chasing this murderous fish till he swamps the last man?
Shall we be dragged by him to the bottom of the sea?
Shall we be towed by him to the infernal world?  Oh, oh,--
Impiety and blasphemy to hunt him more!"

"Starbuck, of late I've felt strangely moved to thee; ever since
that hour we both saw--thou know'st what, in one another's eyes.
But in this matter of the whale, be the front of thy face
to me as the palm of this hand--a lipless, unfeatured blank.
Ahab is for ever Ahab, man.  This whole act's immutably decreed.
'Twas rehearsed by thee and me a billion years before this
ocean rolled.  Fool!  I am the Fates' lieutenant; I act under orders.
Look thou, underling! that thou obeyest mine.--Stand round men, men.
Ye see an old man cut down to the stump; leaning on a shivered lance;
propped up on a lonely foot.  'Tis Ahab--his body's part;
but Ahab's soul's a centipede, that moves upon a hundred legs.
I feel strained, half-stranded, as ropes that tow dismasted frigates
in a gale; and I may look so.  But ere I break, yell hear me crack;
and till ye hear that, know that Ahab's hawser tows his purpose yet.
Believe ye, men, in the things called omens?  Then laugh aloud,
and cry encore!  For ere they drown, drowning things will twice
rise to the surface; then rise again, to sink for evermore.
So with Moby Dick--two days he's floated--to-morrow will be the third.
Aye, men, he'll rise once more,--but only to spout his last!
D'ye feel brave men, brave?"

"As fearless fire," cried Stubb.

"And as mechanical," muttered Ahab.  Then as the men went forward,
he muttered on:  "The things called omens!  And yesterday I talked
the same to Starbuck there, concerning my broken boat.  Oh! how valiantly
I seek to drive out of others' hearts what's clinched so fast in mine!--
The Parsee--the Parsee!--gone, gone? and he was to go before:--
but still was to be seen again ere I could perish--How's that?--
There's a riddle now might baffle all the lawyers backed by the ghosts
of the whole line of judges:--like a hawk's beak it pecks my brain.
I'll, I'll solve it, though!"

When dusk descended, the whale was still in sight to leeward.

So once more the sail was shortened, and everything passed
nearly as on the previous night; only, the sound of hammers,
and the hum of the grindstone was heard till nearly daylight,
as the men toiled by lanterns in the complete and careful