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1The phantoms, for so they then seemed, were flitting on the other side of the deck, and, with a noiseless celerity, were
2casting loose the tackles and bands of the boat which swung there. This boat had always been deemed one of the spare
3boats, though technically called the captain's, on account of its hanging from the starboard quarter. The figure that
4now stood by its bows was tall and swart, with one white tooth evilly protruding from its steel-like lips. A rumpled
5Chinese jacket of black cotton funereally invested him, with wide black trowsers of the same dark stuff. But strangely
6crowning this ebonness was a glistening white plaited turban, the living hair braided and coiled round and round upon
7his head. Less swart in aspect, the companions of this figure were of that vivid, tiger-yellow complexion peculiar to
8some of the aboriginal natives of the Manillas;--a race notorious for a certain diabolism of subtilty, and by some
9honest white mariners supposed to be the paid spies and secret confidential agents on the water of the devil, their
10lord, whose counting-room they suppose to be elsewhere. While yet the wondering ship's company were gazing upon these
11strangers, Ahab cried out to the white-turbaned old man at their head, "All ready there, Fedallah?" "Ready," was the
12half-hissed reply. "Lower away then; d'ye hear?" shouting across the deck. "Lower away there, I say." Such was the
13thunder of his voice, that spite of their amazement the men sprang over the rail; the sheaves whirled round in the
14blocks; with a wallow, the three boats dropped into the sea; while, with a dexterous, off-handed daring, unknown in any
15other vocation, the sailors, goat-like, leaped down the rolling ship's side into the tossed boats below. Hardly had they
16pulled out from under the ship's lee, when a fourth keel, coming from the windward side, pulled round under the stern,
17and showed the five strangers rowing Ahab, who, standing erect in the stern, loudly hailed Starbuck, Stubb, and Flask,
18to spread themselves widely, so as to cover a large expanse of water. But with all their eyes again riveted upon the
19swart Fedallah and his crew, the inmates of the other boats obeyed not the command. "Captain Ahab?--" said Starbuck.
20"Spread yourselves," cried Ahab; "give way, all four boats. Thou, Flask, pull out more to leeward!" "Aye, aye, sir,"
21cheerily cried little King-Post, sweeping round his great steering oar. "Lay back!" addressing his crew.
22"There!--there!--there again! There she blows right ahead, boys!--lay back!" "Never heed yonder yellow boys, Archy."
23"Oh, I don't mind 'em, sir," said Archy; "I knew it all before now. Didn't I hear 'em in the hold? And didn't I tell
24Cabaco here of it? What say ye, Cabaco? They are stowaways, Mr. Flask." "Pull, pull, my fine hearts-alive; pull, my
25children; pull, my little ones," drawlingly and soothingly sighed Stubb to his crew, some of whom still showed signs of
26uneasiness. "Why don't you break your backbones, my boys? What is it you stare at? Those chaps in yonder boat? Tut! They
27are only five more hands come to help us--never mind from where--the more the merrier. Pull, then, do pull; never mind
28the brimstone--devils are good fellows enough. So, so; there you are now; that's the stroke for a thousand pounds;
29that's the stroke to sweep the stakes! Hurrah for the gold cup of sperm oil, my heroes! Three cheers, men--all hearts
30alive! Easy, easy; don't be in a hurry--don't be in a hurry. Why don't you snap your oars, you rascals? Bite something,
31you dogs! So, so, so, then:--softly, softly! That's it--that's it! long and strong. Give way there, give way! The devil
32fetch ye, ye ragamuffin rapscallions; ye are all asleep. Stop snoring, ye sleepers, and pull. Pull, will ye? pull, can't
33ye? pull, won't ye? Why in the name of gudgeons and ginger-cakes don't ye pull?--pull and break something! pull, and
34start your eyes out! Here!" whipping out the sharp knife from his girdle; "every mother's son of ye draw his knife, and
35pull with the blade between his teeth. That's it--that's it. Now ye do something; that looks like it, my steel-bits.
36Start her--start her, my silver-spoons! Start her, marling-spikes!" Stubb's exordium to his crew is given here at large,
37because he had rather a peculiar way of talking to them in general, and especially in inculcating the religion of
38rowing. But you must not suppose from this specimen of his sermonizings that he ever flew into downright passions with
39his congregation. Not at all; and therein consisted his chief peculiarity. He would say the most terrific things to his
40crew, in a tone so strangely compounded of fun and fury, and the fury seemed so calculated merely as a spice to the fun,
41that no oarsman could hear such queer invocations without pulling for dear life, and yet pulling for the mere joke of
42the thing. Besides he all the time looked so easy and indolent himself, so loungingly managed his steering-oar, and so
43broadly gaped--open-mouthed at times--that the mere sight of such a yawning commander, by sheer force of contrast, acted
44like a charm upon the crew. Then again, Stubb was one of those odd sort of humorists, whose jollity is sometimes so
45curiously ambiguous, as to put all inferiors on their guard in the matter of obeying them. In obedience to a sign from
46Ahab, Starbuck was now pulling obliquely across Stubb's bow; and when for a minute or so the two boats were pretty near
47to each other, Stubb hailed the mate. "Mr. Starbuck! larboard boat there, ahoy! a word with ye, sir, if ye please!"
48"Halloa!" returned Starbuck, turning round not a single inch as he spoke; still earnestly but whisperingly urging his
49crew; his face set like a flint from Stubb's. "What think ye of those yellow boys, sir!" "Smuggled on board, somehow,
50before the ship sailed. (Strong, strong, boys!)" in a whisper to his crew, then speaking out loud again: "A sad
51business, Mr. Stubb! (seethe her, seethe her, my lads!) but never mind, Mr. Stubb, all for the best. Let all your crew
52pull strong, come what will. (Spring, my men, spring!) There's hogsheads of sperm ahead, Mr. Stubb, and that's what ye
53came for. (Pull, my boys!) Sperm, sperm's the play! This at least is duty; duty and profit hand in hand." "Aye, aye, I
54thought as much," soliloquized Stubb, when the boats diverged, "as soon as I clapt eye on 'em, I thought so. Aye, and
55that's what he went into the after hold for, so often, as Dough-Boy long suspected. They were hidden down there. The
56White Whale's at the bottom of it. Well, well, so be it! Can't be helped! All right! Give way, men! It ain't the White
57Whale to-day! Give way!" Now the advent of these outlandish strangers at such a critical instant as the lowering of the
58boats from the deck, this had not unreasonably awakened a sort of superstitious amazement in some of the ship's company;
59but Archy's fancied discovery having some time previous got abroad among them, though indeed not credited then, this had
60in some small measure prepared them for the event. It took off the extreme edge of their wonder; and so what with all
61this and Stubb's confident way of accounting for their appearance, they were for the time freed from superstitious
62surmisings; though the affair still left abundant room for all manner of wild conjectures as to dark Ahab's precise
63agency in the matter from the beginning. For me, I silently recalled the mysterious shadows I had seen creeping on board
64the Pequod during the dim Nantucket dawn, as well as the enigmatical hintings of the unaccountable Elijah.
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