CHAPTER 16
The Ship
In bed we concocted our plans for the morrow. But to my surprise and no
small concern, Queequeg now gave me to understand, that he had been
diligently consulting Yojo—the name of his black little god— and Yojo had
told him two or three times over, and strongly insisted upon it everyway,
that instead of our going together among the whaling-fleet in harbor, and in
concert selecting our craft; instead of this, I say, Yojo earnestly enjoined
that the selection of the ship should rest wholly with me, inasmuch as Yojo
purposed befriending us; and, in order to do so, had already pitched upon a
vessel, which, if left to myself, I, Ishmael, should infallibly light upon, for
all the world as though it had turned out by chance; and in that vessel I must
immediately ship myself, for the present irrespective of Queequeg.
I have forgotten to mention that, in many things, Queequeg placed great
confidence in the excellence of Yojo’s judgment and surprising forecast of
things; and cherished Yojo with considerable esteem, as a rather good sort
of god, who perhaps meant well enough upon the whole, but in all cases did
not succeed in his benevolent designs.
Now, this plan of Queequeg’s or rather Yojo’s, touching the selection of
our craft; I did not like that plan at all. I had not a little relied on Queequeg’s
sagacity to point out the whaler best fitted to carry us and our fortunes
securely. But as all my remonstrances produced no effect upon Queequeg, I
was obliged to acquiesce; and accordingly prepared to set about this
business with a determined rushing sort of energy and vigor, that should
quickly settle that trifling little affair. Next morning early, leaving
Queequeg shut up with Yojo in our little bedroom—for it seemed that it was
some sort of Lent or Ramadan, or day of fasting, humiliation, and prayer
with Queequeg and Yojo that day; how it was I never could find out, for,
though I applied myself to it several times, I never could master his liturgies
and XXXIX Articles— leaving Queequeg, then, fasting on his tomahawk
pipe, and Yojo warming himself at his sacrificial fire of shavings, I sallied
out among the shipping. After much prolonged sauntering, and many
random inquiries, I learnt that there were three ships up for three-years’
voyages—The Devil-Dam the Tit-bit, and the Pequod. Devil-dam, I do not
know the origin of; Tit-bit is obvious; Pequod you will no doubt remember,
was the name of a celebrated tribe of Massachusetts Indians; now extinct as
the ancient Medes. I peered and pryed about the Devil-Dam; from her,
hopped over to the Tit-bit; and finally, going on board the Pequod, looked
around her for a moment, and then decided that this was the very ship for
us.
You may have seen many a quaint craft in your day, for aught I know;—
square-toed luggers; mountainous Japanese junks; butter-box galliots, and
what not; but take my word for it, you never saw such a rare old craft as this
same rare old Pequod. She was a ship of the old school, rather small if
anything; with an old-fashioned claw-footed look about her. Long seasoned
and weather-stained in the typhoons and calms of all four oceans, her old
hull’s complexion was darkened like a French grenadier’s, who has alike
fought in Egypt and Siberia. Her venerable bows looked bearded. Her masts
—cut somewhere on the coast of Japan, where her original ones were lost
overboard in a gale—her masts stood stiffly up like the spines of the three
old kings of Cologne. Her ancient decks were worn and wrinkled, like the
pilgrim-worshipped flag-stone in Canterbury Cathedral where Beckett bled.
But to all these her old antiquities, were added new and marvellous
features, pertaining to the wild business that for more than half a century
she had followed. Old Captain Peleg, many years her chief-mate, before he
commanded another vessel of his own, and now a retired seaman, and one
of the principal owners of the Pequod,—this old Peleg, during the term of
his chief-mateship, had built upon her original grotesqueness, and inlaid it,
all over, with a quaintness both of material and device, unmatched by
anything except it be Thorkill-Hake’s carved buckler or bedstead. She was
apparelled like any barbaric Ethiopian emperor, his neck heavy with
pendants of polished ivory. She was a thing of trophies. A cannibal of a
craft, tricking herself forth in the chased bones of her enemies. All round,
her unpanelled, open bulwarks were garnished like one continuous jaw,
with the long sharp teeth of the sperm whale, inserted there for pins, to
fasten her old hempen thews and tendons to. Those thews ran not through
base blocks of land wood, but deftly travelled over sheaves of sea-ivory.
Scorning a turnstile wheel at her reverend helm, she sported there a tiller;
and that tiller was in one mass, curiously carved from the long narrow
lower jaw of her hereditary foe. The helmsman who steered by that tiller in
a tempest, felt like the Tartar, when he holds back his fiery steed by
clutching its jaw. A noble craft, but somehow a most melancholy! All noble
things are touched with that.
Now when I looked about the quarter-deck, for some one having
authority, in order to propose myself as a candidate for the voyage, at first I
saw nobody; but I could not well overlook a strange sort of tent, or rather
wigwam, pitched a little behind the main-mast. It seemed only a temporary
erection used in port. It was of a conical shape, some ten feet high;
consisting of the long, huge slabs of limber black bone taken from the
middle and highest part of the jaws of the right-whale. Planted with their
broad ends on the deck, a circle of these slabs laced together, mutually
sloped towards each other, and at the apex united in a tufted point, where
the loose hairy fibres waved to and fro like a top-knot on some old
Pottowotamie Sachem’s head. A triangular opening faced towards the bows
of the ship, so that the insider commanded a complete view forward.
And half concealed in this queer tenement, I at length found one who by
his aspect seemed to have authority; and who, it being noon, and the ship’s
work suspended, was now enjoying respite from the burden of command.
He was seated on an old-fashioned oaken chair, wriggling all over with
curious carving; and the bottom of which was formed of a stout interlacing
of the same elastic stuff of which the wigwam was constructed.
There was nothing so very particular, perhaps, about the appearance of
the elderly man I saw; he was brown and brawny, like most old seamen, and
heavily rolled up in blue pilot-cloth, cut in the Quaker style; only there was
a fine and almost microscopic net-work of the minutest wrinkles interlacing
round his eyes, which must have arisen from his continual sailings in many
hard gales, and always looking to windward;— for this causes the muscles
about the eyes to become pursed together. Such eye-wrinkles are very
effectual in a scowl.
“Is this the Captain of the Pequod?” said I, advancing to the door of the
tent.
“Supposing it be the Captain of the Pequod, what dost thou want of
him?” he demanded.
“I was thinking of shipping.”
“Thou wast, wast thou? I see thou art no Nantucketer— ever been in a
stove boat?”
“No, Sir, I never have.”
“Dost know nothing at all about whaling, I dare say—eh?
“Nothing, Sir; but I have no doubt I shall soon learn.
I’ve been several voyages in the merchant service, and I think that-”
“Merchant service be damned. Talk not that lingo to me. Dost see that
leg?—I’ll take that leg away from thy stern, if ever thou talkest of the
merchant service to me again. Marchant service indeed! I suppose now ye
feel considerable proud of having served in those marchant ships. But
flukes! man, what makes thee want to go a whaling, eh?—it looks a little
suspicious, don’t it, eh?—Hast not been a pirate, hast thou?— Didst not rob
thy last Captain, didst thou?—Dost not think of murdering the officers
when thou gettest to sea?”
I protested my innocence of these things. I saw that under the mask of
these half humorous innuendoes, this old seaman, as an insulated Quakerish
Nantucketer, was full of his insular prejudices, and rather distrustful of all
aliens, unless they hailed from Cape Cod or the Vineyard.
“But what takes thee a-whaling? I want to know that before I think of
shipping ye.”
“Well, sir, I want to see what whaling is. I want to see the world.”
“Want to see what whaling is, eh? Have ye clapped eye on Captain
Ahab?”
“Who is Captain Ahab, sir?”
“Aye, aye, I thought so. Captain Ahab is the Captain of this ship.”
“I am mistaken then. I thought I was speaking to the Captain himself.”
“Thou art speaking to Captain Peleg—that’s who ye are speaking to,
young man. It belongs to me and Captain Bildad to see the Pequod fitted
out for the voyage, and supplied with all her needs, including crew. We are
part owners and agents. But as I was going to say, if thou wantest to know
what whaling is, as thou tellest ye do, I can put ye in a way of finding it out
before ye bind yourself to it, past backing out. Clap eye on Captain Ahab,
young man, and thou wilt find that he has only one leg.”
“What do you mean, sir? Was the other one lost by a whale?”
“Lost by a whale! Young man, come nearer to me: it was devoured,
chewed up, crunched by the monstrousest parmacetty that ever chipped a
boat!—ah, ah!”
I was a little alarmed by his energy, perhaps also a little touched at the
hearty grief in his concluding exclamation, but said as calmly as I could,
“What you say is no doubt true enough, sir; but how could I know there was
any peculiar ferocity in that particular whale, though indeed I might have
inferred as much from the simple fact of the accident.”
“Look ye now, young man, thy lungs are a sort of soft, d’ye see; thou dost
not talk shark a bit. Sure, ye’ve been to sea before now; sure of that?”
“Sir,” said I, “I thought I told you that I had been four voyages in the
merchant-”
“Hard down out of that! Mind what I said about the marchant service—
don’t aggravate me—I won’t have it. But let us understand each other. I
have given thee a hint about what whaling is! do ye yet feel inclined for it?”
“I do, sir.”
“Very good. Now, art thou the man to pitch a harpoon down a live
whale’s throat, and then jump after it? Answer, quick!”
“I am, sir, if it should be positively indispensable to do so; not to be got
rid of, that is; which I don’t take to be the fact.”
“Good again. Now then, thou not only wantest to go a-whaling, to find
out by experience what whaling is, but ye also want to go in order to see the
world? Was not that what ye said? I thought so. Well then, just step forward
there, and take a peep over the weather bow, and then back to me and tell
me what ye see there.”
For a moment I stood a little puzzled by this curious request, not
knowing exactly how to take it, whether humorously or in earnest. But
concentrating all his crow’s feet into one scowl, Captain Peleg started me on
the errand.
Going forward and glancing over the weather bow, I perceived that the
ship swinging to her anchor with the flood-tide, was now obliquely pointing
towards the open ocean. The prospect was unlimited, but exceedingly
monotonous and forbidding; not the slightest variety that I could see.
“Well, what’s the report?” said Peleg when I came back; “what did ye
see?”
“Not much,” I replied—”nothing but water; considerable horizon though,
and there’s a squall coming up, I think.”
“Well, what dost thou think then of seeing the world?
Do ye wish to go round Cape Horn to see any more of it, eh?
Can’t ye see the world where you stand?”
I was a little staggered, but go a-whaling I must, and I would; and the
Pequod was as good a ship as any—I thought the best— and all this I now
repeated to Peleg. Seeing me so determined, he expressed his willingness to
ship me.
“And thou mayest as well sign the papers right off,” he added—”come
along with ye.” And so saying, he led the way below deck into the cabin.
Seated on the transom was what seemed to me a most uncommon and
surprising figure. It turned out to be Captain Bildad who along with Captain
Peleg was one of the largest owners of the vessel; the other shares, as is
sometimes the case in these ports, being held by a crowd of old annuitants;
widows, fatherless children, and chancery wards; each owning about the
value of a timber head, or a foot of plank, or a nail or two in the ship.
People in Nantucket invest their money in whaling vessels, the same way
that you do yours in approved state stocks bringing in good interest.
Now, Bildad, like Peleg, and indeed many other Nantucketers, was a
Quaker, the island having been originally settled by that sect; and to this
day its inhabitants in general retain in an uncommon measure the
peculiarities of the Quaker, only variously and anomalously modified by
things altogether alien and heterogeneous. For some of these same Quakers
are the most sanguinary of all sailors and whale-hunters. They are fighting
Quakers; they are Quakers with a vengeance.
So that there are instances among them of men, who, named with
Scripture names—a singularly common fashion on the island— and in
childhood naturally imbibing the stately dramatic thee and thou of the
Quaker idiom; still, from the audacious, daring, and boundless adventure of
their subsequent lives, strangely blend with these unoutgrown peculiarities,
a thousand bold dashes of character, not unworthy a Scandinavian sea-king,
or a poetical Pagan Roman. And when these things unite in a man of greatly
superior natural force, with a globular brain and a ponderous heart; who has
also by the stillness and seclusion of many long night-watches in the
remotest waters, and beneath constellations never seen here at the north,
been led to think untraditionally and independently; receiving all nature’s
sweet or savage impressions fresh from her own virgin voluntary and
confiding breast, and thereby chiefly, but with some help from accidental
advantages, to learn a bold and nervous lofty language—that man makes
one in a whole nation’s census— a mighty pageant creature, formed for
noble tragedies. Nor will it at all detract from him, dramatically regarded, if
either by birth or other circumstances, he have what seems a half wilful
overruling morbidness at the bottom of his nature. For all men tragically
great are made so through a certain morbidness. Be sure of this, O young
ambition, all mortal greatness is but disease. But, as yet we have not to do
with such an one, but with quite another; and still a man, who, if indeed
peculiar, it only results again from another phase of the Quaker, modified
by individual circumstances.
Like Captain Peleg, Captain Bildad was a well-to-do, retired whaleman.
But unlike Captain Peleg—who cared not a rush for what are called serious
things, and indeed deemed those self-same serious things the veriest of all
trifles—Captain Bildad had not only been originally educated according to
the strictest sect of Nantucket Quakerism, but all his subsequent ocean life,
and the sight of many unclad, lovely island creatures, round the Horn—all
that had not moved this native born Quaker one single jot, had not so much
as altered one angle of his vest. Still, for all this immutableness, was there
some lack of common consistency about worthy Captain Bildad. Though
refusing, from conscientious scruples, to bear arms against land invaders,
yet himself had illimitably invaded the Atlantic and Pacific; and though a
sworn foe to human bloodshed, yet had he in his straight-bodied coat,
spilled tuns upon tuns of leviathan gore. How now in the contemplative
evening of his days, the pious Bildad reconciled these things in the
reminiscence, I do not know; but it did not seem to concern him much, and
very probably he had long since come to the sage and sensible conclusion
that a man’s religion is one thing, and this practical world quite another.
This world pays dividends. Rising from a little cabin boy in short clothes of
the drabbest drab, to a harpooneer in a broad shad-bellied waistcoat; from
that becoming boat-header, chief mate, and captain, and finally a
shipowner; Bildad, as I hinted before, had concluded his adventurous career
by wholly retiring from active life at the goodly age of sixty, and dedicating
his remaining days to the quiet receiving of his well-earned income.
Now, Bildad, I am sorry to say, had the reputation of being an
incorrigible old hunks, and in his sea-going days, a bitter, hard task-master.
They told me in Nantucket, though it certainly seems a curious story, that
when he sailed the old Categut whaleman, his crew, upon arriving home,
were mostly all carried ashore to the hospital, sore exhausted and worn out.
For a pious man, especially for a Quaker, he was certainly rather hard-
hearted, to say the least. He never used to swear, though, at his men, they
said; but somehow he got an inordinate quantity of cruel, unmitigated hard
work out of them. When Bildad was a chief-mate, to have his drab-colored
eye intently looking at you, made you feel completely nervous, till you
could clutch something—a hammer or a marling-spike, and go to work like
mad, at something or other, never mind what. Indolence and idleness
perished from before him. His own person was the exact embodiment of his
utilitarian character. On his long, gaunt body, he carried no spare flesh, no
superfluous beard, his chin having a soft, economical nap to it, like the
worn nap of his broad-brimmed hat.
Such, then, was the person that I saw seated on the transom when I
followed Captain Peleg down into the cabin. The space between the decks
was small; and there, bolt upright, sat old Bildad, who always sat so, and
never leaned, and this to save his coat-tails. His broad-brim was placed
beside him; his legs were stiffly crossed; his drab vesture was buttoned up
to his chin; and spectacles on nose, he seemed absorbed in reading from a
ponderous volume.
“Bildad,” cried Captain Peleg, “at it again, Bildad, eh? Ye have been
studying those Scriptures, now, for the last thirty years, to my certain
knowledge. How far ye got, Bildad?”
As if long habituated to such profane talk from his old shipmate, Bildad,
without noticing his present irreverence, quietly looked up, and seeing me,
glanced again inquiringly towards Peleg.
“He says he’s our man, Bildad,” said Peleg, “he wants to ship.”
“Dost thee?” said Bildad, in a hollow tone, and turning round to me.
“I dost,” said I unconsciously, he was so intense a Quaker.
“What do ye think of him, Bildad?” said Peleg.
“He’ll do,” said Bildad, eyeing me, and then went on spelling away at his
book in a mumbling tone quite audible.
I thought him the queerest old Quaker I ever saw, especially as Peleg, his
friend and old shipmate, seemed such a blusterer. But I said nothing, only
looking round me sharply. Peleg now threw open a chest, and drawing forth
the ship’s articles, placed pen and ink before him, and seated himself at a
little table. I began to think it was high time to settle with myself at what
terms I would be willing to engage for the voyage. I was already aware that
in the whaling business they paid no wages; but all hands, including the
captain, received certain shares of the profits called lays, and that these lays
were proportioned to the degree of importance pertaining to the respective
duties of the ship’s company. I was also aware that being a green hand at
whaling, my own lay would not be very large; but considering that I was
used to the sea, could steer a ship, splice a rope, and all that, I made no
doubt that from all I had heard I should be offered at least the 275th lay—
that is, the 275th part of the clear net proceeds of the voyage, whatever that
might eventually amount to. And though the 275th lay was what they call a
rather long lay, yet it was better than nothing; and if we had a lucky voyage,
might pretty nearly pay for the clothing I would wear out on it, not to speak
of my three years’ beef and board, for which I would not have to pay one
stiver.
It might be thought that this was a poor way to accumulate a princely
fortune—and so it was, a very poor way indeed. But I am one of those that
never take on about princely fortunes, and am quite content if the world is
ready to board and lodge me, while I am putting up at this grim sign of the
Thunder Cloud. Upon the whole, I thought that the 275th lay would be
about the fair thing, but would not have been surprised had I been offered
the 200th, considering I was of a broad-shouldered make.
But one thing, nevertheless, that made me a little distrustful about
receiving a generous share of the profits was this: Ashore, I had heard
something of both Captain Peleg and his unaccountable old crony Bildad;
how that they being the principal proprietors of the Pequod, therefore the
other and more inconsiderable and scattered owners, left nearly the whole
management of the ship’s affairs to these two. And I did not know but what
the stingy old Bildad might have a mighty deal to say about shipping hands,
especially as I now found him on board the Pequod, quite at home there in
the cabin, and reading his Bible as if at his own fireside. Now while Peleg
was vainly trying to mend a pen with his jack-knife, old Bildad, to my no
small surprise, considering that he was such an interested party in these
proceedings; Bildad never heeded us, but went on mumbling to himself out
of his book, “Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth-”
“Well, Captain Bildad,” interrupted Peleg, “what d’ye say, what lay shall
we give this young man?”
“Thou knowest best,” was the sepulchral reply, “the seven hundred and
seventy-seventh wouldn’t be too much, would it?—’where moth and rust do
corrupt, but lay-‘”
Lay, indeed, thought I, and such a lay! the seven hundred and seventy-
seventh! Well, old Bildad, you are determined that I, for one, shall not lay
up many lays here below, where moth and rust do corrupt. It was an
exceedingly long lay that, indeed; and though from the magnitude of the
figure it might at first deceive a landsman, yet the slightest consideration
will show that though seven hundred and seventy-seven is a pretty large
number, yet, when you come to make a teenth of it, you will then see, I say,
that the seven hundred and seventy-seventh part of a farthing is a good deal
less than seven hundred and seventy-seven gold doubloons; and so I
thought at the time.
“Why, blast your eyes, Bildad,” cried Peleg, Thou dost not want to
swindle this young man! he must have more than that.”
“Seven hundred and seventy-seventh,” again said Bildad, without lifting
his eyes; and then went on mumbling—”for where your treasure is, there
will your heart be also.”
“I am going to put him down for the three hundredth,” said Peleg, “do ye
hear that, Bildad! The three hundredth lay, I say.”
Bildad laid down his book, and turning solemnly towards him said,
“Captain Peleg, thou hast a generous heart; but thou must consider the duty
thou owest to the other owners of this ship—widows and orphans, many of
them— and that if we too abundantly reward the labors of this young man,
we may be taking the bread from those widows and those orphans. The
seven hundred and seventy-seventh lay, Captain Peleg.”
“Thou Bildad!” roared Peleg, starting up and clattering about the cabin.
“Blast ye, Captain Bildad, if I had followed thy advice in these matters,
I would afore now had a conscience to lug about that would be heavy
enough to founder the largest ship that ever sailed round Cape Horn.”
“Captain Peleg,” said Bildad steadily, “thy conscience may be drawing
ten inches of water, or ten fathoms, I can’t tell; but as thou art still an
impenitent man, Captain Peleg, I greatly fear lest thy conscience be but a
leaky one; and will in the end sink thee foundering down to the fiery pit,
Captain Peleg.”
“Fiery pit! fiery pit! ye insult me, man; past all natural bearing, ye insult
me. It’s an all-fired outrage to tell any human creature that he’s bound to
hell. Flukes and flames! Bildad, say that again to me, and start my
soulbolts, but I’ll—I’ll—yes, I’ll swallow a live goat with all his hair and
horns on. Out of the cabin, ye canting, drab-colored son of a wooden gun—
a straight wake with ye!”
As he thundered out this he made a rush at Bildad, but with a marvellous
oblique, sliding celerity, Bildad for that time eluded him.
Alarmed at this terrible outburst between the two principal and
responsible owners of the ship, and feeling half a mind to give up all idea of
sailing in a vessel so questionably owned and temporarily commanded, I
stepped aside from the door to give egress to Bildad, who, I made no doubt,
was all eagerness to vanish from before the awakened wrath of Peleg. But
to my astonishment, he sat down again on the transom very quietly, and
seemed to have not the slightest intention of withdrawing. He seemed quite
used to impenitent Peleg and his ways. As for Peleg, after letting off his
rage as he had, there seemed no more left in him, and he, too, sat down like
a lamb, though he twitched a little as if still nervously agitated. “Whew!” he
whistled at last—”the squall’s gone off to leeward, I think. Bildad, thou
used to be good at sharpening a lance, mend that pen, will ye. My jack-
knife here needs the grindstone. That’s he; thank ye, Bildad. Now then, my
young man, Ishmael’s thy name, didn’t ye say? Well then, down ye go here,
Ishmael, for the three hundredth lay.”
“Captain Peleg,” said I, “I have a friend with me who wants to ship too—
shall I bring him down to-morrow?”
“To be sure,” said Peleg. “Fetch him along, and we’ll look at him.”
“What lay does he want?” groaned Bildad, glancing up from the Book in
which he had again been burying himself.
“Oh! never thee mind about that, Bildad,” said Peleg. “Has he ever
whaled it any?” turning to me.
“Killed more whales than I can count, Captain Peleg.”
“Well, bring him along then.”
And, after signing the papers, off I went; nothing doubting but that I had
done a good morning’s work, and that the Pequod was the identical ship that
Yojo had provided to carry Queequeg and me round the Cape.
But I had not proceeded far, when I began to bethink me that the Captain
with whom I was to sail yet remained unseen by me; though, indeed, in
many cases, a whale-ship will be completely fitted out, and receive all her
crew on board, ere the captain makes himself visible by arriving to take
command; for sometimes these voyages are so prolonged, and the shore
intervals at home so exceedingly brief, that if the captain have a family, or
any absorbing concernment of that sort, he does not trouble himself much
about his ship in port, but leaves her to the owners till all is ready for sea.
However, it is always as well to have a look at him before irrevocably
committing yourself into his hands. Turning back I accosted Captain Peleg,
inquiring where Captain Ahab was to be found.
“And what dost thou want of Captain Ahab? It’s all right enough; thou art
shipped.”
“Yes, but I should like to see him.”
“But I don’t think thou wilt be able to at present. I don’t know exactly
what’s the matter with him; but he keeps close inside the house; a sort of
sick, and yet he don’t look so. In fact, he ain’t sick; but no, he isn’t well
either. Any how, young man, he won’t always see me, so I don’t suppose he
will thee. He’s a queer man, Captain Ahab— so some think—but a good
one. Oh, thou’lt like him well enough; no fear, no fear. He’s a grand,
ungodly, god-like man, Captain Ahab; doesn’t speak much; but, when he
does speak, then you may well listen. Mark ye, be forewarned; Ahab’s
above the common; Ahab’s been in colleges, as well as ‘mong the cannibals;
been used to deeper wonders than the waves; fixed his fiery lance in
mightier, stranger foes than whales. His lance! aye, the keenest and the
surest that out of all our isle! Oh! he ain’t Captain Bildad; no, and he ain’t
Captain Peleg; he’s Ahab, boy; and Ahab of old, thou knowest, was a
crowned king!”
“And a very vile one. When that wicked king was slain, the dogs, did
they not lick his blood?”
“Come hither to me—hither, hither,” said Peleg, with a significance in his
eye that almost startled me. “Look ye, lad; never say that on board the
Pequod. Never say it anywhere. Captain Ahab did not name himself .’Twas
a foolish, ignorant whim of his crazy, widowed mother, who died when he
was only a twelvemonth old. And yet the old squaw Tistig, at Gayhead, said
that the name would somehow prove prophetic. And, perhaps, other fools
like her may tell thee the same. I wish to warn thee. It’s a lie. I know
Captain Ahab well; I’ve sailed with him as mate years ago; I know what he
is— a good man—not a pious, good man, like Bildad, but a swearing good
man—something like me—only there’s a good deal more of him. Aye, aye, I
know that he was never very jolly; and I know that on the passage home he
was a little out of his mind for a spell; but it was the sharp shooting pains in
his bleeding stump that brought that about, as any one might see. I know,
too, that ever since he lost his leg last voyage by that accursed whale, he’s
been a kind of moody— desperate moody, and savage sometimes; but that
will all pass off. And once for all, let me tell thee and assure thee, young
man, it’s better to sail with a moody good captain than a laughing bad one.
So good-bye to thee—and wrong not Captain Ahab, because he happens to
have a wicked name. Besides, my boy, he has a wife—not three voyages
wedded—a sweet, resigned girl. Think of that; by that sweet girl that old
man had a child: hold ye then there can be any utter, hopeless harm in
Ahab? No, no, my lad; stricken, blasted, if he be, Ahab has his humanities!”
As I walked away, I was full of thoughtfulness; what had been
incidentally revealed to me of Captain Ahab, filled me with a certain wild
vagueness of painfulness concerning him. And somehow, at the time, I felt a
sympathy and a sorrow for him, but for I don’t know what, unless it was the
cruel loss of his leg. And yet I also felt a strange awe of him; but that sort of
awe, which I cannot at all describe, was not exactly awe; I do not know
what it was. But I felt it; and it did not disincline me towards him; though I
felt impatience at what seemed like mystery in him, so imperfectly as he
was known to me then. However, my thoughts were at length carried in
other directions, so that for the present dark Ahab slipped my mind.
