CHAPTER 61
Stubb Kills a Whale
If to Starbuck the apparition of the Squid was a thing of portents, to
Queequeg it was quite a different object.
“When you see him ‘quid,” said the savage, honing his harpoon in the
bow of his hoisted boat, “then you quick see him ‘parm whale.”
The next day was exceedingly still and sultry, and with nothing special to
engage them, the Pequod’s crew could hardly resist the spell of sleep
induced by such a vacant sea. For this part of the Indian Ocean through
which we then were voyaging is not what whalemen call a lively ground;
that is, it affords fewer glimpses of porpoises, dolphins, flying-fish, and
other vivacious denizens of more stirring waters, than those off the Rio de
la Plata, or the in-shore ground off Peru.
It was my turn to stand at the foremast-head; and with my shoulders
leaning against the slackened royal shrouds, to and fro I idly swayed in
what seemed an enchanted air. No resolution could withstand it; in that
dreamy mood losing all consciousness, at last my soul went out of my
body; though my body still continued to sway as a pendulum will, long
after the power which first moved it is withdrawn.
Ere forgetfulness altogether came over me, I had noticed that the seamen
at the main and mizzen mast-heads were already drowsy. So that at last all
three of us lifelessly swung from the spars, and for every swing that we
made there was a nod from below from the slumbering helmsman. The
waves, too, nodded their indolent crests; and across the wide trance of the
sea, east nodded to west, and the sun over all.
Suddenly bubbles seemed bursting beneath my closed eyes; like vices my
hands grasped the shrouds; some invisible, gracious agency preserved me;
with a shock I came back to life. And lo! close under our lee, not forty
fathoms off, a gigantic Sperm Whale lay rolling in the water like the
capsized hull of a frigate, his broad, glossy back, of an Ethiopian hue,
glistening in the sun’s rays like a mirror. But lazily undulating in the trough
of the sea, and ever and anon tranquilly spouting his vapory jet, the whale
looked like a portly burgher smoking his pipe of a warm afternoon. But that
pipe, poor whale, was thy last. As if struck by some enchanter’s wand, the
sleepy ship and every sleeper in it all at once started into wakefulness; and
more than a score of voices from all parts of the vessel, simultaneously with
the three notes from aloft, shouted forth the accustomed cry, as the great
fish slowly and regularly spouted the sparkling brine into the air.
“Clear away the boats! Luff!” cried Ahab. And obeying his own order, he
dashed the helm down before the helmsman could handle the spokes.
The sudden exclamations of the crew must have alarmed the whale; and
ere the boats were down, majestically turning, he swam away to the
leeward, but with such a steady tranquillity, and making so few ripples as he
swam, that thinking after all he might not as yet be alarmed, Ahab gave
orders that not an oar should be used, and no man must speak but in
whispers. So seated like Ontario Indians on the gunwales of the boats, we
swiftly but silently paddled along; the calm not admitting of the noiseless
sails being set. Presently, as we thus glided in chase, the monster
perpendicularly flitted his tail forty feet into the air, and then sank out of
sight like a tower swallowed up.
“There go flukes!” was the cry, an announcement immediately followed
by Stubb’s producing his match and igniting his pipe, for now a respite was
granted. After the full interval of his sounding had elapsed, the whale rose
again, and being now in advance of the smoker’s boat, and much nearer to it
than to any of the others, Stubb counted upon the honor of the capture. It
was obvious, now, that the whale had at length become aware of his
pursuers. All silence of cautiousness was therefore no longer of use. Paddles
were dropped, and oars came loudly into play. And still puffing at his pipe,
Stubb cheered on his crew to the assault.
Yes, a mighty change had come over the fish. All alive to his jeopardy, he
was going “head out”; that part obliquely projecting from the mad yeast
which he brewed.*
*It will be seen in some other place of what a very light substance the
entire interior of the sperm whale’s enormous head consists. Though
apparently the most massive, it is by far the most buoyant part about him.
So that with ease he elevates it in the air, and invariably does so when going
at his utmost speed. Besides, such is the breadth of the upper part of the
front of his head, and such the tapering cut-water formation of the lower
part, that by obliquely elevating his head, he thereby may be said to
transform himself from a bluff-bowed sluggish galliot into a sharppointed
New York pilot-boat.
“Start her, start her, my men! Don’t hurry yourselves; take plenty of time
—but start her; start her like thunder-claps, that’s all,” cried Stubb,
spluttering out the smoke as he spoke. “Start her, now; give ’em the long
and strong stroke, Tashtego. Start her, Tash, my boy— start her, all; but
keep cool, keep cool—cucumbers is the word— easy, easy—only start her
like grim death and grinning devils, and raise the buried dead perpendicular
out of their graves, boys— that’s all. Start her!”
“Woo-hoo! Wa-hee!” screamed the Gay-Header in reply, raising some old
war-whoop to the skies; as every oarsman in the strained boat involuntarily
bounced forward with the one tremendous leading stroke which the eager
Indian gave.
But his wild screams were answered by others quite as wild. “Kee-hee!
Kee-hee!” yelled Daggoo, straining forwards and backwards on his seat,
like a pacing tiger in his cage.
“Ka-la! Koo-loo!” howled Queequeg, as if smacking his lips over a
mouthful of Grenadier’s steak. And thus with oars and yells the keels cut the
sea. Meanwhile, Stubb, retaining his place in the van, still encouraged his
men to the onset, all the while puffing the smoke from his mouth. Like
desperadoes they tugged and they strained, till the welcome cry was heard
—”Stand up, Tashtego!—give it to him!” The harpoon was hurled. “Stern
all!” The oarsmen backed water; the same moment something went hot and
hissing along every one of their wrists. It was the magical line. An instant
before, Stubb had swiftly caught two additional turns with it round the
loggerhead, whence, by reason of its increased rapid circlings, a hempen
blue smoke now jetted up and mingled with the steady fumes from his pipe.
As the line passed round and round the loggerhead; so also, just before
reaching that point, it blisteringly passed through and through both of
Stubb’s hands, from which the hand-cloths, or squares of quilted canvas
sometimes worn at these times, had accidentally dropped. It was like
holding an enemy’s sharp two-edged sword by the blade, and that enemy all
the time striving to wrest it out of your clutch.
“Wet the line! wet the line!” cried Stubb to the tub oarsman (him seated
by the tub) who, snatching off his hat, dashed the sea-water into it.* More
turns were taken, so that the line began holding its place. The boat now flew
through the boiling water like a shark all fins. Stubb and Tashtego here
changed places—stem for stern—a staggering business truly in that rocking
commotion.
*Partly to show the indispensableness of this act, it may here be stated,
that, in the old Dutch fishery, a mop was used to dash the running line with
water; in many other ships, a wooden piggin, or bailer, is set apart for that
purpose. Your hat, however, is the most convenient.
From the vibrating line extending the entire length of the upper part of
the boat, and from its now being more tight than a harpstring, you would
have thought the craft had two keels—one cleaving the water, the other the
air—as the boat churned on through both opposing elements at once. A
continual cascade played at the bows; a ceaseless whirling eddy in her
wake; and, at the slightest motion from within, even but of a little finger,
the vibrating, cracking craft canted over her spasmodic gunwale into the
sea. Thus they rushed; each man with might and main clinging to his seat,
to prevent being tossed to the foam; and the tall form of Tashtego at the
steering oar crouching almost double, in order to bring down his centre of
gravity. Whole Atlantics and Pacifics seemed passed as they shot on their
way, till at length the whale somewhat slackened his flight.
“Haul in—haul in!” cried Stubb to the bowsman! and, facing round
towards the whale, all hands began pulling the boat up to him, while yet the
boat was being towed on. Soon ranging up by his flank, Stubb, firmly
planting his knee in the clumsy cleat, darted dart after dart into the flying
fish; at the word of command, the boat alternately sterning out of the way of
the whale’s horrible wallow, and then ranging up for another fling.
The red tide now poured from all sides of the monster like brooks down a
hill. His tormented body rolled not in brine but in blood, which bubbled and
seethed for furlongs behind in their wake. The slanting sun playing upon
this crimson pond in the sea, sent back its reflection into every face, so that
they all glowed to each other like red men. And all the while, jet after jet of
white smoke was agonizingly shot from the spiracle of the whale, and
vehement puff after puff from the mouth of the excited headsman; as at
every dart, hauling in upon his crooked lance (by the line attached to it),
Stubb straightened it again and again, by a few rapid blows against the
gunwale, then again and again sent it into the whale.
“Pull up—pull up!” he now cried to the bowsman, as the waning whale
relaxed in his wrath. “Pull up!—close to!” and the boat ranged along the
fish’s flank. When reaching far over the bow, Stubb slowly churned his long
sharp lance into the fish, and kept it there, carefully churning and churning,
as if cautiously seeking to feel after some gold watch that the whale might
have swallowed, and which he was fearful of breaking ere he could hook it
out. But that gold watch he sought was the innermost life of the fish. And
now it is struck; for, starting from his trance into that unspeakable thing
called his “flurry,” the monster horribly wallowed in his blood,
overwrapped himself in impenetrable, mad, boiling spray, so that the
imperilled craft, instantly dropping astern, had much ado blindly to struggle
out from that phrensied twilight into the clear air of the day.
And now abating in his flurry, the whale once more rolled out into view!
surging from side to side; spasmodically dilating and contracting his spout-
hole, with sharp, cracking, agonized respirations. At last, gush after gush of
clotted red gore, as if it had been the purple lees of red wine, shot into the
frightened air; and falling back again, ran dripping down his motionless
flanks into the sea. His heart had burst!
“He’s dead, Mr. Stubb,” said Daggoo.
“Yes; both pipes smoked out!” and withdrawing his own from his mouth,
Stubb scattered the dead ashes over the water; and, for a moment, stood
thoughtfully eyeing the vast corpse he had made.
