CHAPTER 66

  The Shark Massacre

  When in the Southern Fishery a captured Sperm Whale, after long

and weary toil, is brought alongside late at night, it is not, as a

general thing at least, customary to proceed at once to the business

of cutting him in. For that business is an exceedingly laborious

one; is not very soon completed; and requires all hands to set about

it. Therefore, the common usage is to take in all sail; lash the

helm a'lee; and then send every one below to his hammock till

daylight, with the reservation that, until that time, anchor-watches

shall be kept; that is, two and two for an hour, each couple, the crew

in rotation shall mount the deck to see that all goes well.

  But sometimes, especially upon the Line in the Pacific, this plan

will not answer at all; because such incalculable hosts of sharks

gather round the moored carcase, that were he left so for six hours,

say, on a stretch, little more than the skeleton would be visible by

morning. In most other parts of the ocean, however, where these fish

do not so largely abound, their wondrous voracity can be at times

considerably diminished, by vigorously stirring them up with sharp

whaling-spades, a procedure notwithstanding, which, in some instances,

only seems to tickle them into still greater activity. But it was

not thus in the present case with the Pequod's sharks; though, to be

sure, any man unaccustomed to such sights, to have looked over her

side that night, would have almost thought the whole round sea was one

huge cheese, and those sharks the maggots in it.

  Nevertheless, upon Stubb setting the anchor-watch after his supper

was concluded; and when, accordingly Queequeg and a forecastle

seaman came on deck, no small excitement was created among the sharks;

for immediately suspending the cutting stages over the side, and

lowering three lanterns, so that they cast long gleams of light over

the turbid sea, these two mariners, darting their long

whaling-spades,* kept up an incessant murdering of the sharks, by

striking the keen steel deep into their skulls, seemingly their only

vital part. But in the foamy confusion of their mixed and struggling

hosts, the marksmen could not always hit their mark; and this

brought about new revelations of the incredible ferocity of the foe.

They viciously snapped, not only at each other's disembowelments,

but like flexible bows, bent round, and bit their own; till those

entrails seemed swallowed over and over again by the same mouth, to be

oppositely voided by the gaping wound. Nor was this all. It was unsafe

to meddle with the corpses and ghosts of these creatures. A sort of

generic or Pantheistic vitality seemed to lurk in their very joints

and bones, after what might be called the individual life had

departed. Killed and hoisted on deck for the sake of his skin, one

of these sharks almost took poor Queequeg's hand off, when he tried to

shut down the dead lid of his murderous jaw.

  *The whaling-spade used for cutting-in is made of the very best

steel; is about the bigness of a man's spread hand; and in general

shape, corresponds to the garden implement after which it is named;

only its sides are perfectly flat, and its upper end considerably

narrower than the lower. This weapon is always kept as sharp as

possible; and when being used is occasionally honed, just like a

razor. In its socket, a stiff pole, from twenty to thirty feet long,

is inserted for a handle.

  "Queequeg no care what god made him shark," said the savage,

agonizingly lifting his hand up and down; "wedder Fejee god or

Nantucket god; but de god wat made shark must be one dam Ingin."