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 and Flask mounted the forecastle bulwarks, passing lashings over the anchors in the typhoon. Flask challenged Stubb’s changed tune—hadn’t he once said Ahab’s ship should pay extra insurance, as though loaded with powder barrels and lucifers? Stubb deflected: the drenching spray made ignition impossible. As for lightning rods, what was the difference between holding one and standing by a mast without? He mocked Flask’s timidity.
Stubb reflected on the anchors they lashed. It seemed like tying a man’s hands behind him. He wondered whether the world was anchored anywhere—if so, she swung with an uncommon long cable. He joked about long-tailed coats shedding water. Then his tarpaulin blew overboard. The winds from heaven were unmannerly—a nasty night.
Tashtego passed lashings aloft, muttering for rum, not thunder.
After midnight the storm subsided, allowing the crew to clear away the
The typhoon hurled the helmsman repeatedly to the deck while compass needles spun at every shock—the Pequod a tossed shuttlecock to the blast.
After midnight the storm abated. Starbuck and Stubb cut away the shivered sails, which eddied to leeward like albatross feathers. New canvas was bent and reefed. Watching the compass, the helmsman saw the foul breeze shift fair. The yards squared to the crew’s joyful song; evil portents seemed falsified.
Following Ahab’s standing order, Starbuck descended to report. He paused before the captain’s door. The cabin lamp swung fitfully, casting shadows. A humming silence reigned within the roar. The loaded muskets shone against the bulkhead—and from Starbuck’s heart an evil thought evolved.
He lifted the very musket Ahab had once leveled at him. His hands shook though he had handled deadly lances before. Loaded, powder in the pan. He thought of Mary, his wife, his boy. Ahab would drag them all to doom—refusing to strike spars, smashing his quadrant, rejecting lightning-rods. Starbuck leveled the piece at the thin door. One touch, and he might hug his family again. “Great God, where art Thou? Shall I? shall I?”
From within, Ahab’s tormented sleep cried out: “Stern all! Oh Moby Dick, I clutch thy heart at last!”
The musket shook like a drunkard’s arm. Starbuck wrestled with an angel—then placed the death-tube in its rack and left. He met Stubb on deck: “He’s too sound asleep. Go thou down, and wake him.”
The morning after the typhoon, the sea rolled in long billows pushing the Pequod like giants’ palms. Ahab stood in enchanted silence, exulting: “I bring the sun to ye!”
Suddenly he rushed to the helm, demanding the heading. “East-sou-east,” said the steersman. “Thou liest!” Ahab smote him. With the sun astern, they should be heading West. Thrusting his head into the binnacle, Ahab saw both compasses pointing East while the ship went West. He nearly staggered.
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