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.”
