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.
Stubb meets the strangeness with humor, drawling to his unsettled crew that devils make fine enough companions and the more hands the merrier. His peculiar genius lies in speaking terrible things with such a mixture of fun and fury that his men pull for their lives while laughing at the joke. Starbuck offers no such comfort. When Stubb hails him across the water, the mate keeps his face forward and whispers back that the business is sad but cannot be helped. He has deduced the truth: Ahab smuggled these men aboard, and the White Whale lies at the bottom of it all. Duty and profit must proceed regardless.
Ahab’s boat pulls ahead of the others with terrible speed. His tiger-yellow crew rises and falls like trip-hammers, their strength driving the craft through the water as though shot from a boiler. The old captain stands erect in the stern, steering with the practiced ease of a thousand lowerings, when suddenly his arm fixes in a peculiar gesture. The oars peak; the boat sits motionless. The whales have sounded, vanishing bodily into the blue without leaving so much as a ripple to mark their descent.
The chase becomes a vigil. Starbuck orders Queequeg to stand in the bow, the harpooneer’s eager eyes scanning the empty expanse. Flask, frustrated by his short stature, climbs atop Daggoo’s massive shoulders to gain height, the little mate stamping and raving while the noble black man rolls with every sea, bearing his rider with unconscious majesty. Stubb fills the interval by loading his pipe, betraying no anxiety.
Then Tashtego drops from his stance with a cry. The whales have surfaced. All four boats tear through the water in pursuit, the white water of their wakes mingling with the spouts of their prey. The scene becomes a chaos of motion—vast swells lifting the light craft, the boats tipping on wave-edges before plunging into troughs, the Pequod bearing down behind them with full sails. Flask roars himself hoarse, promising his crew his plantation if they will only beach him on a whale’s back. Stubb follows at a measured distance, drawling philosophy to his men. Starbuck whispers commands with fierce concentration, his eyes fixed ahead like compass needles.
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