Lightning and the Needle
Ahab immediately recovers with a rigid laugh, declaring he understands what happened. He explains that last night’s thunder turned the compasses. Starbuck acknowledges this phenomenon but notes it has never happened to him before. The text notes that such accidents have occurred in violent storms, with lightning sometimes striking vessels and affecting compass needles.
The Science of Magnetism
The narrative explains that the magnetic energy in a compass needle is essentially one with electricity in heaven. Lightning strikes have sometimes destroyed all loadstone virtue in compass needles, rendering magnetic steel useless. Once damaged, the needle never recovers its original virtue, and if one compass is affected, all others in the ship suffer the same fate.
Correcting the Course
Ahab deliberately stands before the binnacle, takes the precise bearing of the sun with his hand, and confirms the needles are exactly inverted. He shouts orders to change course accordingly. The yards are hard up, and the Pequod turns into the opposing wind, having been deceived by the reversed compasses.
The Crew’s Superstitious Awe
Starbuck silently issues orders while Stubb and Flask acquiesce without murmuring. Some sailors rumble lowly, but their fear of Ahab exceeds their fear of fate. The pagan harpooneers remain almost wholly unimpressed, or only affected by the magnetism Ahab projects from his inflexible will.
The Crushed Quadrant
Ahab walks the deck in rolling reveries until he slips and notices the crushed copper sight-tubes of the quadrant he destroyed the day before. He reflects that yesterday he wrecked the quadrant and today the compasses nearly wrecked him, but declares Ahab remains lord over the loadstone. He demands a lance without a pole, a top-maul, and the smallest sail-maker’s needle.
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