But let me have one more good round look aloft here at the sea;there's time for that. An old, old sight, and yet somehow so young;aye, and not changed a wink since I first saw it, a boy, from the sand-hills of Nantucket! The same- the same!- the same to Noah as to me. There's a soft shower to leeward. Such lovely leewardings! They must lead somewhere- to something else than common land, more palmy than the palms. Leeward! the white whale goes that way; look to windward, then; the better if the bitterer quarter. But good bye, good bye, old mast-head! What's this?- green? aye, tiny mosses in these warped cracks. No such green weather stains on Ahab's head! There's the difference now between man's old age and matter's. But aye, old mast, we both grow old together; sound in our hulls, though are we not, my ship? Aye, minus a leg, that's all. By heaven this dead wood has the better of my live flesh every way. I can't compare with it;and I've known some ships made of dead trees outlast the lives of men made of the most vital stuff of vital fathers. What's that he said? he should still go before me, my pilot; and yet to be seen again? But where? Will I have eyes at the bottom of the sea, supposing I descend those endless stairs? and all night I've been sailing from him, wherever he did sink to. Aye, aye, like many more thou toldist direful truth as touching thyself, O Parsee; but, Ahab, there thy shot fell short. Good bye, mast-head- keep a good eye upon the whale, the while I'm gone. We'll talk to-morrow, nay, to-night, when the white whale lies down there, tied by head and tail."He gave the word; and still gazing round him, was steadily lowered through the cloven blue air to the deck.
In due time the boats were lowered; but as standing in his shallop's stern, Ahab just hovered upon the point of the descent, he waved to the mate,- who held one of the tackle- ropes on deck- and bade him pause.
"Starbuck!"
"Sir?"
"For the third time my soul's ship starts upon this voyage, Starbuck.""Aye, sir, thou wilt have it so."
"Some ships sail from their ports, and ever afterwards are missing, Starbuck!""Truth, sir: saddest truth."
"Some men die at ebb tide; some at low water; some at the full of the flood;- and I feel now like a billow that's all one crested comb, Starbuck. I am old;- shake hands with me, man."Their hands met; their eyes fastened; Starbuck's tears the glue.
"Oh, my captain, my captain!- noble heart- go not- go not!- see, it's a brave man that weeps; how great the agony of the persuasion then!""Lower away!"-cried Ahab, tossing the mate's arm from him. "Stand by for the crew!"In an instant the boat was pulling round close under the stern.
"The sharks! the sharks!" cried a voice from the low cabin-window there; "O master, my master, come back!"But Ahab heard nothing; for his own voice was high-lifted then;and the boat leaped on.
Yet the voice spake true; for scarce had he pushed from the ship, when numbers of sharks, seemingly rising from out the dark waters beneath the hull, maliciously snapped at the blades of the oars, every time they dipped in the water; and in this way accompanied the boat with their bites. It is a thing not uncommonly happening to the whale-boats in those swarming seas; the sharks at times apparently following them in the same prescient way that vultures hover over the banners of marching regiments in the east. But these were the first sharks that had been observed by the Pequod since the White Whale had been first descried; and whether it was that Ahab's crew were all such tiger-yellow barbarians, and therefore their flesh more musky to the senses of the sharks- a matter sometimes well known to affect them,- however it was, they seemed to follow that one boat without molesting the others.
"Heart of wrought steel!" murmured Starbuck gazing over the side, and following with his eyes the receding boat- "canst thou yet ring boldly to that sight?- lowering thy keel among ravening sharks, and followed by them, open-mouthed to the chase; and this the critical third day?- For when three days flow together in one continuous intense pursuit; be sure the first is the morning, the second the noon, and the third the evening and the end of that thing- be that end what it may. Oh! my God! what is this that shoots through me, and leaves me so deadly calm, yet expectant,- fixed at the top of a shudder! Future things swim before me, as in empty outlines and skeletons; all the past is somehow grown dim. Mary, girl; thou fadest in pale glories behind me; boy! I seem to see but thy eyes grown wondrous blue. Strangest problems of life seem clearing; but clouds sweep between- Is my journey's end coming? My legs feel faint; like his who has footed it all day. Feel thy heart,- beat it yet? Stir thyself, Starbuck!- stave it off- move, move! speak aloud!- Mast-head there! See ye my boy's hand on the hill?- Crazed;-aloft there!- keep thy keenest eye upon the boats:- mark well the whale!- Ho! again!- drive off that hawk! see! he pecks- he tears the vane"- pointing to the red flag flying at the main-truck- "Ha, he soars away with it!- Where's the old man now? see'st thou that sight, oh Ahab!- shudder, shudder!"The boats had not gone very far, when by a signal from the mast-heads- a downward pointed arm, Ahab knew that the whale had sounded; but intending to be near him at the next rising, he held on his way a little sideways from the vessel; the becharmed crew maintaining the profoundest silence, as the head-bent waves hammered and hammered against the opposing bow.
