.. < chapter xvi 2  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

.. <p 68 >

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; --squared-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

.. <p 69 >

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

.. <p 70 >

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 are 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 marchant 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 inuendoes, 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?

.. <p 71 >


     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


.. <p 72 >

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,

.. <p 73 >

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 selfsame serious things

the veriest of all trifles --Captain Bildad

.. <p 74 >

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 ship-owner; 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

.. <p 75 >

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.

.. <p 76 >

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

nett 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?

.. <p 77 >


     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.

.. <p 78 >


     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 soul-bolts, 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.

.. <p 79 >

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?

.. <p 80 >


     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 has 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.

.. <p 81 >

