CHAPTER 118

  The Quadrant

  The season for the Line at length drew near; and every day when

Ahab, coming from his cabin cast his eyes aloft, the vigilant helmsman

would ostentatiously handle his spokes, and the eager mariners quickly

run to the braces, and would stand there with all their eyes centrally

fixed on the nailed doubloon; impatient for the order to point the

ship's prow for the equator. In good time the order came. It was

hard upon high noon; and Ahab, seated in the bows of his

high-hoisted boat, was about taking his wonted daily observation of

the sun to determine his latitude.

  Now, in that Japanese sea, the days in summer are as freshets of

effulgences. That unblinkingly vivid Japanese sun seems the blazing

focus of the glassy ocean's immeasurable burning-glass. The sky

looks lacquered; clouds there are none; the horizon floats; and this

nakedness of unrelieved radiance is as the insufferable splendors of

God's throne. Well that Ahab's quadrant was furnished with colored

glasses, through which to take sight of that solar fire. So,

swinging his seated form to the roll of the ship, and with his

astrological-looking instrument placed to his eye, he remained in that

posture for some moments to catch the precise instant when the sun

should gain its precise meridian. Meantime while his whole attention

was absorbed, the Parsee was kneeling beneath him on the ship's

deck, and with face thrown up like Ahab's, was eyeing the same sun

with him; only the lids of his eyes half hooded their orbs, and his

wild face was subdued to an earthly passionlessness. At length the

desired observation was taken; and with his pencil upon his ivory leg,

Ahab soon calculated what his latitude must be at that precise

instant. Then falling into a moment's revery, he again looked up

towards the sun and murmured to himself: "Thou seamark! thou high

and mighty Pilot! thou tellest me truly where I am- but canst thou

cast the least hint where I shall be? Or canst thou tell where some

other thing besides me is this moment living? Where is Moby Dick? This

instant thou must be eyeing him. These eyes of mine look into the very

eye that is even now beholding him; aye, and into the eye that is even

now equally beholding the objects on the unknown, thither side of

thee, thou sun!"

  Then gazing at his quadrant, and handling, one after the other,

its numerous cabalistical contrivances, he pondered again, and

muttered: "Foolish toy! babies' plaything of haughty Admirals, and

Commodores, and Captains; the world brags of thee, of thy cunning

and might; but what after all canst thou do, but tell the poor,

pitiful point, where thou thyself happenest to be on this wide planet,

and the hand that holds thee: no! not one jot more! Thou canst not

tell where one drop of water or one grain of sand will be to-morrow

noon; and yet with thy impotence thou insultest the sun! Science!

Curse thee, thou vain toy; and cursed be all the things that cast

man's eyes aloft to that heaven, whose live vividness but scorches

him, as these old eyes are even now scorched with thy light, O sun!

Level by nature to this earth's horizon are the glances of man's eyes;

not shot from the crown of his head, as if God had meant him to gaze

on his firmament. Curse thee, thou quadrant!" dashing it to the

deck, "no longer will I guide my earthly way by thee; the level ship's

compass, and the level deadreckoning, by log and by line; these

shall conduct me, and show me my place on the sea. Aye," lighting from

the boat to the deck, "thus I trample on thee, thou paltry thing

that feebly pointest on high; thus I split and destroy thee!"

  As the frantic old man thus spoke and thus trampled with his live

and dead feet, a sneering triumph that seemed meant for Ahab, and a

fatalistic despair that seemed meant for himself- these passed over

the mute, motionless Parsee's face. Unobserved he rose and glided

away; while, awestruck by the aspect of their commander, the seamen

clustered together on the forecastle, till Ahab, troubledly pacing the

deck, shouted out- "To the braces! Up helm!- square in!"

  In an instant the yards swung round; and as the ship half-wheeled

upon her heel, her three firm-seated graceful masts erectly poised

upon her long, ribbed hull, seemed as the three Horatii pirouetting on

one sufficient steed.

  Standing between the knight-heads, Starbuck watched the Pequod's

tumultuous way, and Ahab's also, as he went lurching along the deck.

  "I have sat before the dense coal fire and watched it all aglow,

full of its tormented flaming life; and I have seen it wane at last,

down, down, to dumbest dust. Old man of oceans! of all this fiery life

of thine, what will at length remain but one little heap of ashes!"

  "Aye," cried Stubb, "but sea-coal ashes- mind ye that, Mr. Starbuck-

sea-coal, not your common charcoal. Well, well! I heard Ahab mutter,

'Here some one thrusts these cards into these old hands of mine;

swears that I must play them, and no others.' And damn me, Ahab, but

thou actest right; live in the game, and die in it!"