CHAPTER 73
Stubb and Flask Kill a Right Whale; and Then Have a Talk Over Him
It must be borne in mind that all this time we have a Sperm Whale’s
prodigious head hanging to the Pequod’s side. But we must let it continue
hanging there a while till we can get a chance to attend to it. For the present
other matters press, and the best we can do now for the head, is to pray
heaven the tackles may hold.
Now, during the past night and forenoon, the Pequod had gradually
drifted into a sea, which, by its occasional patches of yellow brit, gave
unusual tokens of the vicinity of Right Whales, a species of the Leviathan
that but few supposed to be at this particular time lurking anywhere near.
And though all hands commonly disdained the capture of those inferior
creatures; and though the Pequod was not commissioned to cruise for them
at all, and though she had passed numbers of them near the Crozetts without
lowering a boat; yet now that a Sperm Whale had been brought alongside
and beheaded, to the surprise of all, the announcement was made that a
Right Whale should be captured that day, if opportunity offered.
Nor was this long wanting. Tall spouts were seen to leeward; and two
boats, Stubb’s and Flask’s, were detached in pursuit. Pulling further and
further away, they at last became almost invisible to the men at the
masthead. But suddenly in the distance, they saw a great heap of
tumultuous white water, and soon after news came from aloft that one or
both the boats must be fast. An interval passed and the boats were in plain
sight, in the act of being dragged right towards the ship by the towing
whale. So close did the monster come to the hull, that at first it seemed as if
he meant it malice; but suddenly going down in a maelstrom, within three
rods of the planks, he wholly disappeared from view, as if diving under the
keel. “Cut, cut!” was the cry from the ship to the boats, which, for one
instant, seemed on the point of being brought with a deadly dash against the
vessel’s side. But having plenty of line yet in the tubs, and the whale not
sounding very rapidly, they paid out abundance of rope, and at the same
time pulled with all their might so as to get ahead of the ship. For a few
minutes the struggle was intensely critical; for while they still slacked out
the tightened line in one direction, and still plied their oars in another, the
contending strain threatened to take them under. But it was only a few feet
advance they sought to gain. And they stuck to it till they did gain it; when
instantly, a swift tremor was felt running like lightning along the keel, as the
strained line, scraping beneath the ship, suddenly rose to view under her
bows, snapping and quivering; and so flinging off its drippings, that the
drops fell like bits of broken glass on the water, while the whale beyond
also rose to sight, and once more the boats were free to fly. But the fagged
whale abated his speed, and blindly altering his course, went round the stern
of the ship towing the two boats after him, so that they performed a
complete circuit.
Meantime, they hauled more and more upon their lines, till close flanking
him on both sides, Stubb answered Flask with lance for lance; and thus
round and round the Pequod the battle went, while the multitudes of sharks
that had before swum round the Sperm Whale’s body, rushed to the fresh
blood that was spilled, thirstily drinking at every new gash, as the eager
Israelites did at the new bursting fountains that poured from the smitten
rock.
At last his spout grew thick, and with a frightful roll and vomit, he turned
upon his back a corpse.
While the two headsmen were engaged in making fast cords to his flukes,
and in other ways getting the mass in readiness for towing, some
conversation ensued between them.
“I wonder what the old man wants with this lump of foul lard,” said
Stubb, not without some disgust at the thought of having to do with so
ignoble a leviathan.
“Wants with it?” said Flask, coiling some spare line in the boat’s bow,
“did you never hear that the ship which but once has a Sperm Whale’s head
hoisted on her starboard side, and at the same time a Right Whale’s on the
larboard; did you never hear, Stubb, that that ship can never afterwards
capsize?”
“Why not?
“I don’t know, but I heard that gamboge ghost of a Fedallah saying so,
and he seems to know all about ships’ charms. But I sometimes think he’ll
charm the ship to no good at last. I don’t half like that chap, Stubb. Did you
ever notice how that tusk of his is a sort of carved into a snake’s head,
Stubb?”
“Sink him! I never look at him at all; but if ever I get a chance of a dark
night, and he standing hard by the bulwarks, and no one by; look down
there, Flask”—pointing into the sea with a peculiar motion of both hands
—”Aye, will I! Flask, I take that Fedallah to be the devil in disguise. Do you
believe that cock and bull story about his having been stowed away on
board ship? He’s the devil, I say. The reason why you don’t see his tail, is
because he tucks it up out of sight; he carries it coiled away in his pocket, I
guess. Blast him! now that I think of it, he’s always wanting oakum to stuff
into the toes of his boots.”
“He sleeps in his boots, don’t he? He hasn’t got any hammock; but I’ve
seen him lay of nights in a coil of rigging.”
“No doubt, and it’s because of his cursed tail; he coils it down, do ye see,
in the eye of the rigging.”
“What’s the old man have so much to do with him for?”
“Striking up a swap or a bargain, I suppose.”
“Bargain?—about what?”
“Why, do ye see, the old man is hard bent after that White Whale, and the
devil there is trying to come round him, and get him to swap away his silver
watch, or his soul, or something of that sort, and then he’ll surrender Moby
Dick.”
“Pooh! Stubb, you are skylarking; how can Fedallah do that?”
“I don’t know, Flask, but the devil is a curious chap, and a wicked one, I
tell ye. Why, they say as how he went a sauntering into the old flag-ship
once, switching his tail about devilish easy and gentlemanlike, and
inquiring if the old governor was at home. Well, he was at home, and asked
the devil what he wanted. The devil, switching his hoofs, up and says, ‘I
want John.’ ‘What for?’ says the old governor. ‘What business is that of
yours,’ says the devil, getting mad,—’I want to use him.’ ‘Take him,’ says the
governor— and by the Lord, Flask, if the devil didn’t give John the Asiatic
cholera before he got through with him, I’ll eat this whale in one mouthful.
But look sharp—ain’t you all ready there? Well, then, pull ahead, and let’s
get the whale alongside.”
“I think I remember some such story as you were telling,” said Flask,
when at last the two boats were slowly advancing with their burden towards
the ship, “but I can’t remember where.”
“Three Spaniards? Adventures of those three bloody-minded soldadoes?
Did ye read it there, Flask? I guess ye did?”
“No: never saw such a book; heard of it, though. But now, tell me, Stubb,
do you suppose that that devil you was speaking of just now, was the same
you say is now on board the Pequod?”
“Am I the same man that helped kill this whale? Doesn’t the devil live for
ever; who ever heard that the devil was dead? Did you ever see any parson
a wearing mourning for the devil? And if the devil has a latch-key to get
into the admiral’s cabin, don’t you suppose he can crawl into a porthole?
Tell me that, Mr. Flask?”
“How old do you suppose Fedallah is, Stubb?”
“Do you see that mainmast there?” pointing to the ship; “well, that’s the
figure one; now take all the hoops in the Pequod’s hold, and string ’em
along in a row with that mast, for oughts, do you see; well, that wouldn’t
begin to be Fedallah’s age. Nor all the coopers in creation couldn’t show
hoops enough to make oughts enough.”
“But see here, Stubb, I thought you a little boasted just now, that you
meant to give Fedallah a sea-toss, if you got a good chance. Now, if he’s so
old as all those hoops of yours come to, and if he is going to live for ever,
what good will it do to pitch him overboard— tell me that?
“Give him a good ducking, anyhow.”
“But he’d crawl back.”
“Duck him again; and keep ducking him.”
“Suppose he should take it into his head to duck you, though— yes, and
drown you—what then?”
“I should like to see him try it; I’d give him such a pair of black eyes that
he wouldn’t dare to show his face in the admiral’s cabin again for a long
while, let alone down in the orlop there, where he lives, and hereabouts on
the upper decks where he sneaks so much. Damn the devil, Flask; do you
suppose I’m afraid of the devil? Who’s afraid of him, except the old
governor who daresn’t catch him and put him in double-darbies, as he
deserves, but lets him go about kidnapping people; aye, and signed a bond
with him, that all the people the devil kidnapped, he’d roast for him? There’s
a governor!”
“Do you suppose Fedallah wants to kidnap Captain Ahab?”
“Do I suppose it? You’ll know it before long, Flask. But I am going now
to keep a sharp look-out on him; and if I see anything very suspicious going
on, I’ll just take him by the nape of his neck, and say—Look here,
Beelzebub, you don’t do it; and if he makes any fuss, by the Lord I’ll make a
grab into his pocket for his tail, take it to the capstan, and give him such a
wrenching and heaving, that his tail will come short off at the stump—do
you see; and then, I rather guess when he finds himself docked in that queer
fashion, he’ll sneak off without the poor satisfaction of feeling his tail
between his legs.”
“And what will you do with the tail, Stubb?”
“Do with it? Sell it for an ox whip when we get home;—what else?”
“Now, do you mean what you say, and have been saying all along,
Stubb?”
“Mean or not mean, here we are at the ship.”
The boats were here hailed, to tow the whale on the larboard side, where
fluke chains and other necessaries were already prepared for securing him.
“Didn’t I tell you so?” said Flask; “yes, you’ll soon see this right whale’s
head hoisted up opposite that parmacety’s.”
In good time, Flask’s saying proved true. As before, the Pequod steeply
leaned over towards the sperm whale’s head, now, by the counterpoise of
both heads, she regained her even keel; though sorely strained, you may
well believe. So, when on one side you hoist in Locke’s head, you go over
that way; but now, on the other side, hoist in Kant’s and you come back
again; but in very poor plight. Thus, some minds for ever keep trimming
boat. Oh, ye foolish! throw all these thunder-heads overboard, and then you
will float light and right.
In disposing of the body of a right whale, when brought alongside the
ship, the same preliminary proceedings commonly take place as in the case
of a sperm whale; only, in the latter instance, the head is cut off whole, but
in the former the lips and tongue are separately removed and hoisted on
deck, with all the well known black bone attached to what is called the
crown-piece. But nothing like this, in the present case, had been done. The
carcases of both whales had dropped astern; and the head-laden ship not a
little resembled a mule carrying a pair of overburdening panniers.
Meantime, Fedallah was calmly eyeing the right whale’s head, and ever
and anon glancing from the deep wrinkles there to the lines in his own
hand. And Ahab chanced so to stand, that the Parsee occupied his shadow;
while, if the Parsee’s shadow was there at all it seemed only to blend with,
and lengthen Ahab’s. As the crew toiled on, Laplandish speculations were
bandied among them, concerning all these passing things.
