Call me Ishmael. Years ago, finding myself poor and aimless on land, I decided to sail and view the watery world. This is my method for curing melancholy and regulating my blood. Whenever my mouth grows grim, or my soul feels like a damp, drizzly November, I know it is time to leave. The urge becomes undeniable when I pause before coffin before warehouses, trail behind funerals, or feel a manic impulse to knock hats off in the street. Going to sea is my alternative to suicide. While Cato died on his sword with a flourish, I quietly board a ship. This impulse is not unique; almost all men feel a magnetic pull toward the ocean.
Then a cry went up. Lashed to the whale’s back by the tangled lines, the half-torn body of Fedallah was revealed—his sable raiment shredded, his distended eyes fixed on Ahab. The first hearse of the prophecy had appeared. Ahab’s harpoon dropped from his hand. He recognized the fulfillment but pressed on, defiant, sending the damaged boats back to the ship for repair. He would continue alone.
Moby Dick swam past the Pequod, seemingly intent only on escape. From the deck, Starbuck cried that the whale sought Ahab not—it was Ahab who madly sought the whale. But Ahab ordered the ship to follow at a distance. He saw the crew hammering at broken boats, and the sound struck him like nails driven into his heart. He rallied and ordered a new flag nailed to the mast.
The sharks still followed, their jaws crunching the oars to jagged splinters. Ahab joked that the teeth made better rowlocks than water, but wondered whether they came for the whale or for him. His boat closed with Moby Dick’s flank. He steered into the smoky mist of the whale’s spout and hurled his iron and his curse into the white whale. The line snapped in the empty air.
Moby Dick wheeled and caught sight of the black hull of the Pequod. Seeming to recognize the source of his persecution, he bore down on the ship, smiting his jaws amid showers of foam. Ahab cried to save his ship, but his own boat was foundering, water pouring through burst planks.
From the deck, Starbuck and Stubb saw the whale coming. Each mate faced death in his own voice—Starbuck in desperate prayer, Stubb in dark jokes about cherries and dying in his drawers, Flask in practical regret for wages unpaid. The crew stood frozen, their enchanted eyes fixed on the whale. Moby Dick’s solid white forehead smote the starboard bow. Men and timbers reeled. Through the breach, waters poured like mountain torrents.
Ahab recognized the second hearse. He turned from the sun and delivered his final defiance: “Towards thee I roll, thou all-destroying but unconquered whale; to the last I grapple with thee; from hell’s heart I stab at thee; for hate’s sake I spit my last breath at thee.” He hurled his last harpoon. The line ran foul. He stooped to clear it, but the flying turn caught him round the neck and shot him voicelessly from the boat—strangled by the very rope meant to bind his enemy.
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