CHAPTER 59

  Squid

  Slowly wading through the meadows of brit, the Pequod still held

on her way north-eastward towards the island of Java; a gentle air

impelling her keel, so that in the surrounding serenity her three tall

tapering masts mildly waved to that languid breeze, as three mild

palms on a plain. And still, at wide intervals in the silvery night,

the lonely, alluring jet would be seen.

  But one transparent blue morning, when a stillness almost

preternatural spread over the sea, however unattended with any

stagnant calm; when the long burnished sun-glade on the waters

seemed a golden finger laid across them, enjoining some secrecy;

when the slippered waves whispered together as they softly ran on;

in this profound hush of the visible sphere a strange spectre was seen

by Daggoo from the main-mast-head.

  In the distance, a great white mass lazily rose, and rising higher

and higher, and disentangling itself from the azure, at last gleamed

before our prow like a snow-slide, new slid from the hills. Thus

glistening for a moment, as slowly it subsided, and sank. Then once

more arose, and silently gleamed. It seemed not a whale; and yet is

this Moby Dick? thought Daggoo. Again the phantom went down, but on

re-appearing once more, with a stiletto-like cry that startled every

man from his nod, the negro yelled out- "There! there again! there she

breaches! right ahead! The White Whale, the White Whale!"

  Upon this, the seamen rushed to the yard-arms, as in swarming-time

the bees rush to the boughs. Bare-headed in the sultry sun, Ahab stood

on the bowsprit, and with one hand pushed far behind in readiness to

wave his orders to the helmsman, cast his eager glance in the

direction indicated aloft by the outstretched motionless arm of

Daggoo.

  Whether the flitting attendance of the one still and solitary jet

had gradually worked upon Ahab, so that he was now prepared to connect

the ideas of mildness and repose with the first sight of the

particular whale he pursued; however this was, or whether his

eagerness betrayed him; whichever way it might have been, no sooner

did he distinctly perceive the white mass, than with a quick intensity

he instantly gave orders for lowering.

  The four boats were soon on the water; Ahab's in advance, and all

swiftly pulling towards their prey. Soon it went down, and while, with

oars suspended, we were awaiting its reappearance, lo! in the same

spot where it sank, once more it slowly rose. Almost forgetting for

the moment all thoughts of Moby Dick, we now gazed at the most

wondrous phenomenon which the secret seas have hitherto revealed to

mankind. A vast pulpy mass, furlongs in length and breadth, of a

glancing cream-color, lay floating on the water, innumerable long arms

radiating from its centre, and curling and twisting like a nest of

anacondas, as if blindly to catch at any hapless object within

reach. No perceptible face or front did it have; no conceivable

token of either sensation or instinct; but undulated there on the

billows, an unearthly, formless, chance-like apparition of life.

  As with a low sucking sound it slowly disappeared again, Starbuck

still gazing at the agitated waters where it had sunk, with a wild

voice exclaimed- "Almost rather had I seen Moby Dick and fought him,

than to have seen thee, thou white ghost!"

  "What was it, Sir?" said Flask.

  "The great live squid, which, they say, few whale-ships ever beheld,

and returned to their ports to tell of it."

  But Ahab said nothing; turning his boat, he sailed back to the

vessel; the rest as silently following.

  Whatever superstitions the sperm whalemen in general have

connected with the sight of this object, certain it is, that a glimpse

of it being so very unusual, that circumstance has gone far to

invest it with portentousness. So rarely is it beheld, that though one

and all of them declare it to be the largest animated thing in the

ocean, yet very few of them have any but the most vague ideas

concerning its true nature and form; notwithstanding, they believe

it to furnish to the sperm whale his only food. For though other

species of whales find their food above water, and may be seen by

man in the act of feeding, the spermaceti whale obtains his whole food

in unknown zones below the surface; and only by inference is it that

any one can tell of what, precisely, that food consists. At times,

when closely pursued, he will disgorge what are supposed to be the

detached arms of the squid; some of them thus exhibited exceeding

twenty and thirty feet in length. They fancy that the monster to which

these arms belonged ordinarily clings by them to the bed of the ocean;

and that the sperm whale, unlike other species, is supplied with teeth

in order to attack and tear it.

  There seems some ground to imagine that the great Kraken of Bishop

Pontoppodan may ultimately resolve itself into Squid. The manner in

which the Bishop describes it, as alternately rising and sinking, with

some other particulars he narrates, in all this the two correspond.

But much abatement is necessary with respect to the incredible bulk he

assigns it.

  By some naturalists who have vaguely heard rumors of the

mysterious creature, here spoken of, it is included among the class of

cuttle-fish, to which, indeed, in certain external respects it would

seem to belong, but only as the Anak of the tribe.