CHAPTER 99

  The Doubloon

  Ere now it has been related how Ahab was wont to pace his

quarter-deck, taking regular turns at either limit, the binnacle and

mainmast; but in the multiplicity of other things requiring

narration it has not been added how that sometimes in these walks,

when most plunged in his mood, he was wont to pause in turn at each

spot, and stand there strangely eyeing the particular object before

him. When he halted before the binnacle, with his glance fastened on

the pointed needle in the compass, that glance shot like a javelin

with the pointed intensity of his purpose; and when resuming his

walk he again paused before the mainmast, then, as the same riveted

glance fastened upon the riveted gold coin there, he still wore the

same aspect of nailed firmness, only dashed with a certain wild

longing, if not hopefulness.

  But one morning, turning to pass the doubloon, he seemed to be newly

attracted by the strange figures and inscriptions stamped on it, as

though now for the first time beginning to interpret for himself in

some monomaniac way whatever significance might lurk in them. And some

certain significance lurks in all things, else all things are little

worth, and the round world itself but an empty cipher, except to

sell by the cartload, as they do hills about Boston, to fill up some

morass in the Milky Way.

  Now this doubloon was of purest, virgin gold, raked somewhere out of

the heart of gorgeous hills, whence, east and west, over golden sands,

the head-waters of many a Pactolus flows. And though now nailed amidst

all the rustiness of iron bolts and the verdigris of copper spikes,

yet, untouchable and immaculate to any foulness, it still preserved

its Quito glow. Nor, though placed amongst a ruthless crew and every

hour passed by ruthless hands, and through the livelong nights

shrouded with thick darkness which might cover any pilfering approach,

nevertheless every sunrise found the doubloon where the sunset last

left it. For it was set apart and sanctified to one awe-striking

end; and however wanton in their sailor ways, one and all, the

mariners revered it as the white whale's talisman. Sometimes they

talked it over in the weary watch by night, wondering whose it was

to be at last, and whether he would ever live to spend it.

  Now those noble golden coins of South America are as medals of the

sun and tropic token-pieces. Here palms, alpacas, and volcanoes; sun's

disks and stars, ecliptics, horns-of-plenty, and rich banners

waving, are in luxuriant profusion stamped; so that the precious

gold seems almost to derive an added preciousness and enhancing

glories, by passing through those fancy mints, so Spanishly poetic.

  It so chanced that the doubloon of the Pequod was a most wealthy

example of these things. On its round border it bore the letters,

REPUBLICA DEL ECUADOR: QUITO. So this bright coin came from a

country planted in the middle of the world, and beneath the great

equator, and named after it; and it had been cast midway up the Andes,

in the unwaning clime that knows no autumn. Zoned by those letters you

saw the likeness of three Andes' summits; from one a flame; a tower on

another; on the third a crowing cock; while arching over all was a

segment of the partitioned zodiac, the signs all marked with their

usual cabalistics, and the keystone sun entering the equinoctial point

at Libra.

  Before this equatorial coin, Ahab, not unobserved by others, was now

pausing.

  "There's something ever egotistical in mountain-tops and towers, and

all other grand and lofty things; look here,- three peaks as proud

as Lucifer. The firm tower, that is Ahab; the volcano, that is Ahab;

the courageous, the undaunted, and victorious fowl, that, too, is

Ahab; all are Ahab; and this round gold is but the image of the

rounder globe, which, like a magician's glass, to each and every man

in turn but mirrors back his own mysterious self. Great pains, small

gains for those who ask the world to solve them; it cannot solve

itself. Methinks now this coined sun wears a ruddy face; but see! aye,

he enters the sign of storms, the equinox! and but six months before

he wheeled out of a former equinox at Aries! From storm to storm! So

be it, then. Born in throes, 't is fit that man should live in pains

and die in pangs! So be it, then! Here's stout stuff for woe to work

on. So be it, then."

  "No fairy fingers can have pressed the gold, but devil's claws

have left their mouldings there since yesterday," murmured Starbuck to

himself, leaning against the bulwarks. "The old man seems to read

Belshazzar's awful writing. I have never marked the coin inspectingly.

He goes below; let me read. A dark valley between three mighty,

heaven-abiding peaks, that almost seem the Trinity, in some faint

earthly symbol. So in this vale of Death, God girds us round; and over

all our gloom, the sun of Righteousness still shines a beacon and a

hope. If we bend down our eyes, the dark vale shows her mouldy soil;

but if we lift them, the bright sun meets our glance half way, to

cheer. Yet, oh, the great sun is no fixture; and if, at midnight, we

would fain snatch some sweet solace from him, we gaze for him in vain!

This coin speaks wisely, mildly, truly, but still sadly to me. I

will quit it, lest Truth shake me falsely."

  "There now's the old Mogul," soliloquized Stubb by the try-works,

"he's been twigging it; and there goes Starbuck from the same, and

both with faces which I should say might be somewhere within nine

fathoms long. And all from looking at a piece of gold, which did I

have it now on Negro Hill or in Corlaer's Hook, I'd not look at it

very long ere spending it. Humph! in my poor, insignificant opinion, I

regard this as queer. I have seen doubloons before now in my

voyagings; your doubloons of old Spain, your doubloons of Peru, your

doubloons of Chili, your doubloons of Bolivia, your doubloons of

Popayan; with plenty of gold moidores and pistoles, and joes, and half

joes, and quarter joes. What then should there be in this doubloon

of the Equator that is so killing wonderful? By Golconda! let me

read it once. Halloa! here's signs and wonders truly! That, now, is

what old Bowditch in his Epitome calls the zodiac, and what my

almanack below calls ditto. I'll get the almanack; and as I have heard

devils can be raised with Daboll's arithmetic, I'll try my hand at

raising a meaning out of these queer curvicues here with the

Massachusetts calendar. Here's the book. Let's see now. Signs and

wonders; and the sun, he's always among 'em. Hem, hem, hem; here

they are- here they go- all alive: Aries, or the Ram; Taurus, or the

Bull and Jimimi! here's Gemini himself, or the Twins. Well; the sun he

wheels among 'em. Aye, here on the coin he's just crossing the

threshold between two of twelve sitting-rooms all in a ring. Book! you

lie there; the fact is, you books must know your places. You'll do

to give us the bare words and facts, but we come in to supply the

thoughts. That's my small experience, so far as the Massachusetts

calendar, and Bowditch's navigator, and Daboll's arithmetic go.

Signs and wonders, eh? Pity if there is nothing wonderful in signs,

and significant in wonders! There's a clue somewhere; wait a bit;

hist- hark! By Jove, I have it! Look you, Doubloon, your zodiac here

is the life of man in one round chapter; and now I'll read it off,

straight out of the book. Come, Almanack! To begin: there's Aries,

or the Ram- lecherous dog, he begets us; then, Taurus, or the Bull- he

bumps us the first thing; then Gemini, or the Twins- that is, Virtue

and Vice; we try to reach Virtue, when lo! comes Cancer the Crab,

and drags us back; and here, going from Virtue, Leo, a roaring Lion,

lies in the path- he gives a few fierce bites and surly dabs with

his paw; we escape, and hail Virgo, the Virgin! that's our first love;

we marry and think to be happy for aye, when pop comes Libra, or the

Scales- happiness weighed and found wanting; and while we are very sad

about that, Lord! how we suddenly jump, as Scorpio, or the Scorpion,

stings us in the rear; we are curing the wound, when whang comes the

arrows all round; Sagittarius, or the Archer, is amusing himself. As

we pluck out the shafts, stand aside! here's the battering-ram,

Capricornus, or the Goat; full tilt, he comes rushing, and headlong we

are tossed; when Aquarius, or the Waterbearer, pours out his whole

deluge and drowns us; and to wind up with Pisces, or the Fishes, we

sleep. There's a sermon now, writ in high heaven, and the sun goes

through it every year, and yet comes out of it all alive and hearty.

Jollily he, aloft there, wheels through toil and trouble; and so, alow

here, does jolly Stubb. Oh, jolly's the word for aye! Adieu, Doubloon!

But stop; here comes little King-Post; dodge round the try-works, now,

and let's hear what he'll have to say. There; he's before it; he'll

out with something presently. So, so; he's beginning."

  "I see nothing here, but a round thing made of gold, and whoever

raises a certain whale, this round thing belongs to him. So, what's

all this staring been about? It is worth sixteen dollars, that's true;

and at two cents the cigar, that's nine hundred and sixty cigars. I

won't smoke dirty pipes like Stubb, but I like cigars, and here's nine

hundred and sixty of them; so here goes Flask aloft to spy 'em out."

  "Shall I call that Wise or foolish, now; if it be really wise it has

a foolish look to it; yet, if it be really foolish, then has it a sort

of wiseish look to it. But, avast; here comes our old Manxman- the old

hearse-driver, he must have been, that is, before he took to the

sea. He luffs up before the doubloon; halloa, and goes round on the

other side of the mast; why, there's a horse-shoe nailed on that side;

and now he's back again; what does that mean? Hark! he's muttering-

voice like an old worn-out coffee-mill. Prick ears, and listen!"

  "If the White Whale be raised, it must be in a month and a day, when

the sun stands in some one of these signs. I've studied signs, and

know their marks; they were taught me two score years ago, by the

old witch in Copenhagen. Now, in what sign will the sun then be? The

horse-shoe sign; for there it is, right opposite the gold. And

what's the horse-shoe sign? The lion is the horse-shoe sign- the

roaring and devouring lion. Ship, old ship! my old head shakes to

think of thee."

  "There's another rendering now; but still one text. All sorts of men

in one kind of world, you see. Dodge again! here comes Queequeg- all

tattooing- looks like the signs of the Zodiac himself. What says the

Cannibal? As I live he's comparing notes; looking at his thigh bone;

thinks the sun is in the thigh, or in the calf, or in the bowels, I

suppose, as the old women talk Surgeon's Astronomy in the black

country. And by Jove, he's found something there in the vicinity of

his thigh- I guess it's Sagittarius, or the Archer. No: he don't

know what to make of the doubloon; he takes it for an old button off

some king's trowsers. But, aside again! here comes that ghost-devil,

Fedallah; tail coiled out of sight as usual, oakum in the toes of

his pumps as usual. What does he say, with that look of his? Ah,

only makes a sign to the sign and bows himself; there is a sun on

the coin- fire worshipper, depend upon it. Ho! more and more. This way

comes Pip- poor boy! would he had died, or I; he's half horrible to

me. He too has been watching all of these interpreters myself

included- and look now, he comes to read, with that unearthly idiot

face. Stand away again and hear him. Hark!"

  "I look, you look, he looks; we look, ye look, they look."

  "Upon my soul, he's been studying Murray's Grammar! Improving his

mind, poor fellow! But what's that he says now- hist!"

  "I look, you look, he looks; we look, ye look, they look."

  "Why, he's getting it by heart- hist! again."

  "I look, you look, he looks; we look, ye look, they look."

  "Well, that's funny."

  "And I, you, and he; and we, ye, and they, are all bats; and I'm a

crow, especially when I stand a'top of this pine tree here. Caw!

caw! caw! caw! caw! caw! Ain't I a crow? And where's the scare-crow?

There he stands; two bones stuck into a pair of old trowsers, and

two more poked into the sleeves of an old jacket."

  "Wonder if he means me?- complimentary- poor lad!- I could go hang

myself. Any way, for the present, I'll quit Pip's vicinity. I can

stand the rest, for they have plain wits; but he's too crazy-witty for

my sanity. So, so, I leave him muttering."

  "Here's the ship's navel, this doubloon here, and they are all one

fire to unscrew it. But, unscrew your navel, and what's the

consequence? Then again, if it stays here, that is ugly, too, for when

aught's nailed to the mast it's a sign that things grow desperate. Ha!

ha! old Ahab! the White Whale; he'll nail ye! This is a pine tree.

My father, in old Tolland county, cut down a pine tree once, and found

a silver ring grown over in it; some old darkey's wedding ring. How

did it get there? And so they'll say in the resurrection, when they

come to fish up this old mast, and find a doubloon lodged in it,

with bedded oysters for the shaggy bark. Oh, the gold! the precious,

precious gold!- the green miser'll hoard ye soon! Hish! hish! God goes

'mong the worlds blackberrying. Cook! ho, cook! and cook us! Jenny!

hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, Jenny, Jenny! and get your hoe-cake done!"