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.
The whales separate. Starbuck’s boat pursues three running to leeward, sail set, rushing through gathering mist. The mate sees white water close ahead and whispers the order to rise. Queequeg stands, harpoon drawn. The iron flies—but glances harmlessly off the whale’s hump. In the same instant, disaster strikes from behind and below. An invisible force shoves the boat forward while something solid arrests it; the sail explodes; scalding vapor erupts; the squall descends with the fury of a prairie fire. Whale and storm merge into a single overwhelming assault. The craft swamps, tossing its crew into churning whiteness.
They recover the oars and lash them across the gunwales, sitting submerged to their knees in a boat that seems to have grown up from the ocean floor. The wind howls; waves crash together; the storm roars and crackles around them. Hailing the other boats proves useless. Bail they cannot. Starbuck manages to light a lantern and hands it to Queequeg, who holds the small flame aloft in the vast darkness—a fragile standard for men beyond hope, clutching at hope itself.
Dawn finds them wet, frozen, despairing of rescue. The mist still blankets the sea. Then Queequeg starts upright, hand cupped to his ear. A creaking of ropes and yards grows nearer. The fog parts to reveal a vast hull bearing down upon them. They spring into the sea in terror. The swamped boat vanishes beneath the ship’s bow, crushed like driftwood at a waterfall’s base. The men swim for their lives, are dashed against the hull, and at last are hauled aboard. The Pequod had given them up for lost, yet still cruised the waters, searching for any sign—a floating oar, a lance pole—some token of the souls the sea had swallowed.
Surviving the squall, Ishmael embraces a nihilistic outlook, viewing the voyage as a vast practical joke where death is merely a sly blow from an unseen joker. He questions Stubb and Flask about the trade’s inherent dangers, and their casual confirmation that capsizing and frantic stampings are commonplace convinces him of the insanity of his situation. Weighing the extreme risks of Starbuck’s prudence and the hunt for the White Whale, Ishmael resolves to go below and draft his will. He enlists Queequeg as his lawyer, executor, and legatee, sealing their bond against the peril. Once the document is complete, Ishmael feels a heavy burden lifted from his chest. He regards himself as a ghost who has already died and been buried, granting him a fearless immunity. With his sleeves unconsciously rolled, he prepares to plunge into destruction, ready to let the devil take the hindmost.
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