CHAPTER 134

  The Chase - Second Day

  At day-break, the three mast-heads were punctually manned afresh.

  "D'ye see him?" cried Ahab after allowing a little space for the

light to spread.

  "See nothing, sir."

  "Turn up all hands and make sail! he travels faster than I thought

for;- the top-gallant sails!- aye, they should have been kept on her

all night. But no matter- 'tis but resting for the rush."

  Here be it said, that this pertinacious pursuit of one particular

whale, continued through day into night, and through night into day,

is a thing by no means unprecedented in the South sea fishery. For

such is the wonderful skill, prescience of experience, and

invincible confidence acquired by some great natural geniuses among

the Nantucket commanders; that from the simple observation of a

whale when last descried, they will, under certain given

circumstances, pretty accurately foretell both the direction in

which he will continue to swim for a time, while out of sight, as well

as his probable rate of progression during that period. And, in

these cases, somewhat as a pilot, when about losing sight of a

coast, whose general trending he well knows, and which he desires

shortly to return to again, but at some further point; like as this

pilot stands by his compass, and takes the precise bearing of the cape

at present visible, in order the more certainly to hit aright the

remote, unseen headland, eventually to be visited: so does the

fisherman, at his compass, with the whale; for after being chased, and

diligently marked, through several hours of daylight, then, when night

obscures the fish, the creature's future wake through the darkness

is almost as established to the sagacious mind of the hunter, as the

pilot's coast is to him. So that to this hunter's wondrous skill,

the proverbial evanescence of a thing writ in water, a wake, is to all

desired purposes well nigh as reliable as the steadfast land. And as

the mighty iron Leviathan of the modern railway is so familiarly known

in its every pace, that, with watches in their hands, men time his

rate as doctors that of a baby's pulse; and lightly say of it, the

up train or the down train will reach such or such a spot, at such

or such an hour; even so, almost, there are occasions when these

Nantucketers time that other Leviathan of the deep, according to the

observed humor of his speed; and say to themselves, so many hours

hence this whale will have gone two hundred miles, will have about

reached this or that degree of latitude or longitude. But to render

this acuteness at all successful in the end, the wind and the sea must

be the whaleman's allies; for of what present avail to the becalmed or

wind-bound mariner is the skill that assures him he is exactly

ninety-three leagues and a quarter from his port? Inferable from these

statements, are many collateral subtile matters touching the chase

of whales.

  The ship tore on; leaving such a furrow in the sea as when a

cannonball, missent, becomes a plough-share and turns up the level

field.

  "By salt and hemp!" cried Stubb, "but this swift motion of the

deck creeps up one's legs and tingles at the heart. This ship and I

are two brave fellows!- Ha, ha! Some one take me up, and launch me,

spine-wise, on the sea,- for by live-oaks! my spine's a keel. Ha,

ha! we go the gait that leaves no dust behind!"

  "There she blows- she blows!- she blows!- right ahead!" was now

the mast-head cry.

  "Aye, aye!" cried Stubb, "I knew it- ye can't escape- blow on and

split your spout, O whale! the mad fiend himself is after ye! blow

your trump- blister your lungs!- Ahab will dam off your blood, as a

miller shuts his watergate upon the stream!"

  And Stubb did but speak out for well nigh all that crew. The

frenzies of the chase had by this time worked them bubblingly up, like

old wine worked anew. Whatever pale fears and forebodings some of them

might have felt before; these were not only now kept out of sight

through the growing awe of Ahab, but they were broken up, and on all

sides routed, as timid prairie hares that scatter before the

bounding bison. The hand of Fate had snatched all their souls; and

by the stirring perils of the previous day; the rack of the past

night's suspense; the fixed, unfearing, blind, reckless way in which

their wild craft went plunging towards its flying mark; by all these

things, their hearts were bowled along. The wind that made great

bellies of their sails, and rushed the vessel on by arms invisible

as irresistible; this seemed the symbol of that unseen agency which so

enslaved them to the race.

  They were one man, not thirty. For as the one ship that held them

all; though it was put together of all contrasting things- oak, and

maple, and pine wood; iron, and pitch, and hemp- yet all these ran

into each other in the one concrete hull, which shot on its way,

both balanced and directed by the long central keel; even so, all

the individualities of the crew, this man's valor, that man's fear;

guilt and guiltiness, all varieties were welded into oneness, and were

all directed to that fatal goal which Ahab their one lord and keel did

point to.

  The rigging lived. The mast-heads, like the tops of tall palms, were

outspreadingly tufted with arms and legs. Clinging to a spar with

one hand, some reached forth the other with impatient wavings; others,

shading their eyes from the vivid sunlight, sat far out on the rocking

yards; all the spars in full bearing of mortals, ready and ripe for

their fate. Ah! how they still strove through that infinite blueness

to seek out the thing that might destroy them!

  "Why sing ye not out for him, if ye see him?" cried Ahab, when,

after the lapse of some minutes since the first cry, no more had

been heard. "Sway me up, men; ye have been deceived; not Moby Dick

casts one odd jet that way, and then disappears."

  It was even so; in their headlong eagerness, the men had mistaken

some other thing for the whale-spout, as the event itself soon proved;

for hardly had Ahab reached his perch; hardly was the rope belayed

to its pin on deck, when he struck the key-note to an orchestra,

that made the air vibrate as with the combined discharge of rifles.

The triumphant halloo of thirty buckskin lungs was heard, as- much

nearer to the ship than the place of the imaginary jet, less than a

mile ahead- Moby Dick bodily burst into view! For not by any calm

and indolent spoutings; not by the peaceable gush of that mystic

fountain in his head, did the White Whale now reveal his vicinity; but

by the far more wondrous phenomenon of breaching. Rising with his

utmost velocity from the furthest depths, the Sperm Whale thus booms

his entire bulk into the pure element of air, and piling up a mountain

of dazzling foam, shows his place to the distance of seven miles and

more. In those moments, the torn, enraged waves he shakes off, seem

his mane; in some cases, this breaching is his act of defiance.

  "There she breaches! there she breaches!" was the cry, as in his

immeasurable bravadoes the White Whale tossed himself salmon-like to

Heaven. So suddenly seen in the blue plain of the sea, and relieved

against the still bluer margin of the sky, the spray that he raised,

for the moment, intolerably glittered and glared like a glacier; and

stood there gradually fading and fading away from its first

sparkling intensity, to the dim mistiness of an advancing shower in

a vale.

  "Aye, breach your last to the sun, Moby Dick!" cried Ahab, "thy hour

and thy harpoon are at hand!- Down! down all of ye, but one man at the

fore. The boats!- stand by!"

  Unmindful of the tedious rope-ladders of the shrouds, the men,

like shooting stars, slid to the deck, by the isolated backstays and

halyards; while Ahab, less dartingly, but still rapidly was dropped

from his perch.

  "Lower away," he cried, so soon as he had reached his boat- a

spare one, rigged the afternoon previous. "Mr. Starbuck, the ship is

thine- away from the boats, but keep near them. Lower, all!"

  As if to strike a quick terror into them, by this time being the

first assailant himself, Moby Dick had turned, and was now coming

for the three crews. Ahab's boat was central; and cheering his men, he

told them he would take the whale head-and-head,- that is, pull

straight up to his forehead,- a not uncommon thing; for when within

a certain limit, such a course excludes the coming onset from the

whale's sidelong vision. But ere that close limit was gained, and

while yet all three boats were plain as the ship's three masts to

his eye; the White Whale churning himself into furious speed, almost

in an instant as it were, rushing among the boats with open jaws,

and a lashing tail, offered appalling battle on every side; and

heedless of the iron darted at him from every boat, seemed only intent

on annihilating each separate plank of which those boats were made.

But skilfully manoeuvred, incessantly wheeling like trained chargers

in the field; the boats for a while eluded him; though, at times,

but by a plank's breadth; while all the time, Ahab's unearthly

slogan tore every other cry but his to shreds.

  But at last in his untraceable evolutions, the White Whale so

crossed and recrossed, and in a thousand ways entangled the slack of

the three lines now fast to him, that they foreshortened, and, of

themselves, warped the devoted boats towards the planted irons in him;

though now for a moment the whale drew aside a little, as if to

rally for a more tremendous charge. Seizing that opportunity, Ahab

first paid out more line; and then was rapidly hauling and jerking

in upon it again- hoping that way to disencumber it of some snarls-

when lo!- a sight more savage than the embattled teeth of sharks!

  Caught and twisted- corkscrewed in the mazes of the line, loose

harpoons and lances, with all their bristling barbs and points, came

flashing and dripping up to the chocks in the bows of Ahab's boat.

Only one thing could be done. Seizing the boat-knife, he critically

reached within- through- and then, without- the rays of steel; dragged

in the line beyond, passed it, inboard, to the bowsman, and then,

twice sundering the rope near the chocks- dropped the intercepted

fagot of steel into the sea; and was all fast again. That instant, the

White Whale made a sudden rush among the remaining tangles of the

other lines; by so doing, irresistibly dragged the more involved boats

of Stubb and Flask towards his flukes; dashed them together like two

rolling husks on a surf-beaten beach, and then, diving down into the

sea, disappeared in a boiling maelstrom, in which, for a space, the

odorous cedar chips of the wrecks danced round and round, like the

grated nutmeg in a swiftly stirred bowl of punch.

  While the two crews were yet circling in the waters, reaching out

after the revolving line-tubs, oars, and other floating furniture,

while aslope little Flask bobbed up and down like an empty vial,

twitching his legs upwards to escape the dreaded jaws of sharks; and

Stubb was lustily singing out for some one to ladle him up; and

while the old man's line- now parting- admitted of his pulling into

the creamy pool to rescue whom he could;- in that wild

simultaneousness of a thousand concreted perils,- Ahab's yet

unstricken boat seemed drawn up towards Heaven by invisible wires,-

as, arrow-like, shooting perpendicularly from the sea, the White Whale

dashed his broad forehead against its bottom, and sent it turning over

and over, into the air; till it fell again- gunwale down- and Ahab and

his men struggled out from under it, like seals from a sea-side cave.

  The first uprising momentum of the whale- modifying its direction as

he struck the surface- involuntarily launched him along it, to a

little distance from the centre of the destruction he had made; and

with his back to it, he now lay for a moment slowly feeling with his

flukes from side to side; and whenever a stray oar, bit of plank,

the least chip or crumb of the boats touched his skin, his tail

swiftly drew back, and came sideways smiting the sea. But soon, as

if satisfied that his work for that time was done, he pushed his

pleated forehead through the ocean, and trailing after him the

intertangled lines, continued his leeward way at a traveller's

methodic pace.

  As before, the attentive ship having descried the whole fight, again

came bearing down to the rescue, and dropping a boat, picked up the

floating mariners, tubs, oars, and whatever else could be caught at,

and safely landed them on her decks. Some sprained shoulders,

wrists, and ankles; livid contusions; wrenched harpoons and lances;

inextricable intricacies of rope; shattered oars and planks; all these

were there; but no fatal or even serious ill seemed to have befallen

any one. As with Fedallah the day before, so Ahab was now found grimly

clinging to his boat's broken half, which afforded a comparatively

easy float; nor did it so exhaust him as the previous day's mishap.

  But when he was helped to the deck, all eyes were fastened upon him;

as instead of standing by himself he still half-hung upon the shoulder

of Starbuck, who had thus far been the foremost to assist him. His

ivory leg had been snapped off, leaving but one short sharp splinter.

  "Aye, aye, Starbuck, 'tis sweet to lean sometimes, be the leaner who

he will; and would old Ahab had leaned oftener than he has."

  "The ferrule has not stood, sir," said the carpenter, now coming up;

put good work into that leg."

  "But no bones broken, sir, I hope," said Stubb with true concern.

  "Aye! and all splintered to pieces, Stubb!- d'ye see it.- But even

with a broken bone, old Ahab is untouched; and I account no living

bone of mine one jot more me, than this dead one that's lost. Nor

white whale, nor man, nor fiend, can so much as graze old Ahab in

his own proper and inaccessible being. Can any lead touch yonder

floor, any mast scrape yonder roof?- Aloft there! which way?"

  "Dead to leeward, sir."

  "Up helm, then; pile on the sail again, ship keepers! down the

rest of the spare boats and rig them- Mr. Starbuck away, and muster

the boat's crews."

  "Let me first help thee towards the bulwarks, sir."

  "Oh, oh, oh! how this splinter gores me now! Accursed fate! that the

unconquerable captain in the soul should have such a craven mate!"

  "Sir?"

  "My body, man, not thee. Give me something for a cane- there, that

shivered lance will do. Muster the men. Surely I have not seen him

yet. By heaven it cannot be!-missing?- quick! call them all."

  The old man's hinted thought was true. Upon mustering the company,

the Parsee was not there.

  "The Parsee!" cried Stubb- "he must have been caught in-"

  "The black vomit wrench thee!- run all of ye above, alow, cabin,

forecastle- find him- not gone- not gone!"

  But quickly they returned to him with the tidings that the Parsee

was nowhere to be found.

  "Aye, sir," said Stubb- "caught among the tangles of your line- I

thought I saw him dragging under."

  "My line! my line? Gone?- gone? What means that little word?- What

death-knell rings in it, that old Ahab shakes as if he were the

belfry. The harpoon, too!- toss over the litter there,- d'ye see

it?- the forged iron, men, the white whale's- no, no, no,- listered

fool! this hand did dart it!- 'tis in the fish!- Aloft there! Keep him

nailed-Quick!- all hands to the rigging of the boats- collect the

oars- harpooneers! the irons, the irons!- hoist royals higher- a

pull on all the sheets!- helm there! steady, steady for your life!

I'll ten times girdle the unmeasured globe; yea and dive straight

through it, but I'll slay him yet!

  "Great God! but for one single instant show thyself," cried

Starbuck; "never, never wilt thou capture him, old man- In Jesus' name

no more of this, that's worse than devil's madness. Two days chased;

twice stove to splinters; thy very leg once more snatched from under

thee; thy evil shadow gone- all good angels mobbing thee with

warnings:- what more wouldst thou have?- Shall we keep chasing this

murderous fish till he swamps the last man? Shall we be dragged by him

to the bottom of the sea? Shall we be towed by him to the infernal

world? Oh, oh,- Impiety and blasphemy to hunt him more!"

  "Starbuck, of late I've felt strangely moved to thee; ever since

that hour we both saw- thou know'st what, in one another's eyes. But

in this matter of the whale, be the front of thy face to me as the

palm of this hand- a lipless, unfeatured blank. Ahab is for ever Ahab,

man. This whole act's immutably decreed. 'Twas rehearsed by thee and

me a billion years before this ocean rolled. Fool! I am the Fates'

lieutenant; I act under orders. Look thou, underling! that thou

obeyest mine.- Stand round men, men. Ye see an old man cut down to the

stump; leaning on a shivered lance; propped up on a lonely foot.

'Tis Ahab- his body's part; but Ahab's soul's a centipede, that

moves upon a hundred legs. I feel strained, half-stranded, as ropes

that tow dismasted frigates in a gale; and I may look so. But ere I

break, yell hear me crack; and till ye hear that, know that Ahab's

hawser tows his purpose yet. Believe ye, men, in the things called

omens? Then laugh aloud, and cry encore! For ere they drown,

drowning things will twice rise to the surface; then rise again, to

sink for evermore. So with Moby Dick- two days he's floated- to-morrow

will be the third. Aye, men, he'll rise once more,- but only to

spout his last! D'ye feel brave men, brave?"

  "As fearless fire," cried Stubb.

  "And as mechanical," muttered Ahab. Then as the men went forward, he

muttered on: "The things called omens! And yesterday I talked the same

to Starbuck there, concerning my broken boat. Oh! how valiantly I seek

to drive out of others' hearts what's clinched so fast in mine!- The

Parsee- the Parsee!- gone, gone? and he was to go before:- but still

was to be seen again ere I could perish- How's that?- There's a riddle

now might baffle all the lawyers backed by the ghosts of the whole

line of judges:- like a hawk's beak it pecks my brain. I'll, I'll

solve it, though!"

  When dusk descended, the whale was still in sight to leeward.

  So once more the sail was shortened, and everything passed nearly as

on the previous night; only, the sound of hammers, and the hum of

the grindstone was heard till nearly daylight, as the men toiled by

lanterns in the complete and careful rigging of the spare boats and

sharpening their fresh weapons for the morrow. Meantime, of the broken

keel of Ahab's wrecked craft the carpenter made him another leg; while

still as on the night before, slouched Ahab stood fixed within his

scuttle; his hid, heliotrope glance anticipatingly gone backward on

its dial; sat due eastward for the earliest sun.