The Gold Coin
Ahab produces a Spanish gold coin—a sixteen-dollar piece—and orders Starbuck to fetch a top-maul. Without speaking, he slowly rubs the gold piece against his jacket, heightening its luster while humming to himself in a strangely muffled, mechanical way, as if the wheels of his vitality are turning. With the hammer in hand, he advances to the main-mast holding up the gold to the sun, proclaiming that whoever raises him a white-headed whale with a wrinkled brow and crooked jaw, with three holes in his starboard fluke, shall receive this gold ounce.
The Bounty
The seamen hail the act with “Huzza!” as Ahab nails the gold piece to the mast. He reiterates that it is a white whale, ordering them to skin their eyes for him, look sharp for white water, and sing out if they see even a bubble. Tashtego, Daggoo, and Queequeg watch with even more intense interest than the rest, particularly when Ahab mentions the wrinkled brow and crooked jaw—they seem to have specific recollections of this whale.
Moby Dick Identified
Tashtego asks if this is the whale some call Moby Dick. Ahab seizes on this, questioning them to confirm they know this whale. Tashtego asks if it fan-tails before diving, Daggoo inquires about its bushy spout, and Queequeg describes the many irons twisted and wrenched in its hide, comparing it to a corkscrew. Ahab confirms all these details, identifying the spout as like a shock of wheat, white as Nantucket wool after the sheep-shearing, and its tail like a split jib in a squall. He declares that this is indeed Moby Dick they have seen.
The Lost Leg
Starbuck, who has been watching with increasing surprise, asks if it was Moby Dick that took off Ahab’s leg. Ahab demands who told him this, then confirms it: Moby Dick dismasted him, Moby Dick brought him to this dead stump he stands on. He shouts with a terrific, loud, animal sob like a heart-stricken moose that it was that accursed white whale that razeed him and made a poor pegging lubber of him forever and a day.
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