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.
Ahab leaned over the bulwarks and demanded news of the White Whale. Gabriel interrupted with frantic warnings of shattered boats and horrible tails, the rough sea conspiring to drown all speech between the vessels. When the waters briefly calmed, Captain Mayhew recounted his chief mate’s fate. Harry Macey had defied Gabriel’s prohibition and pursued Moby Dick, driving home an iron while the fanatic hurled prophecies from the mast-head. A great white shadow rose beneath the mate and struck him bodily through the air in a long arc—he vanished beneath the waves while boat and oarsmen remained untouched. The selective destruction confirmed Gabriel’s prophecy and deepened his terror-hold on the crew.
Ahab, hearing this, asked whether Mayhew intended to hunt the White Whale. When the captain answered that he did not, Ahab declared that he himself would. Gabriel leaped up, pointing downward: the blasphemer would soon join Macey in death. Ahab turned aside and bethought himself of his letter-bag. Starbuck produced a mould-stained, damp missive addressed to the dead man—from his wife, Ahab surmised. The captain attempted to pass the letter via a split pole, but Gabriel snatched it from the air, seized a boat-knife, and speared the document. He hurled it back at Ahab’s feet, crying that the old man would soon follow Macey into the deep. Then he shouted for his oarsmen to pull, and the boat shot away across the rolling sea.
During the cutting-in of the whale, Queequeg must descend onto the submerged creature’s back to insert the blubber-hook. As his bowsman, Ishmael tends to him by means of a monkey-rope—a line fastened at both ends, to Queequeg’s canvas belt and to Ishmael’s leather one. This arrangement creates what Ishmael calls a Siamese ligature: the two men are wedded for better or worse, and should Queequeg sink, honor demands that Ishmael be dragged down in his wake. Ishmael feels his individuality merged into a joint stock company of two, his free will mortally wounded by the knowledge that another’s error could doom him.
Reflecting further, he perceives this as the universal condition of mankind. Every mortal breathes in Siamese connection with a plurality of others. If your banker breaks, you snap; if your apothecary sends poison, you die. However cautiously Ishmael handles his end of the rope, Queequeg’s sudden jerks nearly send him overboard.
The peril intensifies as sharks swarm the blood-muddled water around Queequeg. Ishmael jerks the rope to keep him clear of the maws, while Tashtego and Daggoo, suspended in stages, slash at the creatures with whale-spades. Their zealous strokes threaten Queequeg as much as the sharks, leaving him in a sad pickle between foes and clumsy friends.
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