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1Days, weeks passed, and under easy sail, the ivory Pequod had slowly swept across four several cruising-grounds; that
2off the Azores; off the Cape de Verdes; on the Plate (so called), being off the mouth of the Rio de la Plata; and the
3Carrol Ground, an unstaked, watery locality, southerly from St. Helena. It was while gliding through these latter waters
4that one serene and moonlight night, when all the waves rolled by like scrolls of silver; and, by their soft, suffusing
5seethings, made what seemed a silvery silence, not a solitude; on such a silent night a silvery jet was seen far in
6advance of the white bubbles at the bow. Lit up by the moon, it looked celestial; seemed some plumed and glittering god
7uprising from the sea. Fedallah first descried this jet. For of these moonlight nights, it was his wont to mount to the
8main-mast head, and stand a look-out there, with the same precision as if it had been day. And yet, though herds of
9whales were seen by night, not one whaleman in a hundred would venture a lowering for them. You may think with what
10emotions, then, the seamen beheld this old Oriental perched aloft at such unusual hours; his turban and the moon,
11companions in one sky. But when, after spending his uniform interval there for several successive nights without
12uttering a single sound; when, after all this silence, his unearthly voice was heard announcing that silvery, moon-lit
13jet, every reclining mariner started to his feet as if some winged spirit had lighted in the rigging, and hailed the
14mortal crew. "There she blows!" Had the trump of judgment blown, they could not have quivered more; yet still they felt
15no terror; rather pleasure. For though it was a most unwonted hour, yet so impressive was the cry, and so deliriously
16exciting, that almost every soul on board instinctively desired a lowering. Walking the deck with quick, side-lunging
17strides, Ahab commanded the t'gallant sails and royals to be set, and every stunsail spread. The best man in the ship
18must take the helm. Then, with every mast-head manned, the piled-up craft rolled down before the wind. The strange,
19upheaving, lifting tendency of the taffrail breeze filling the hollows of so many sails, made the buoyant, hovering deck
20to feel like air beneath the feet; while still she rushed along, as if two antagonistic influences were struggling in
21her--one to mount direct to heaven, the other to drive yawingly to some horizontal goal. And had you watched Ahab's face
22that night, you would have thought that in him also two different things were warring. While his one live leg made
23lively echoes along the deck, every stroke of his dead limb sounded like a coffin-tap. On life and death this old man
24walked. But though the ship so swiftly sped, and though from every eye, like arrows, the eager glances shot, yet the
25silvery jet was no more seen that night. Every sailor swore he saw it once, but not a second time. This midnight-spout
26had almost grown a forgotten thing, when, some days after, lo! at the same silent hour, it was again announced: again it
27was descried by all; but upon making sail to overtake it, once more it disappeared as if it had never been. And so it
28served us night after night, till no one heeded it but to wonder at it. Mysteriously jetted into the clear moonlight, or
29starlight, as the case might be; disappearing again for one whole day, or two days, or three; and somehow seeming at
30every distinct repetition to be advancing still further and further in our van, this solitary jet seemed for ever
31alluring us on. Nor with the immemorial superstition of their race, and in accordance with the preternaturalness, as it
32seemed, which in many things invested the Pequod, were there wanting some of the seamen who swore that whenever and
33wherever descried; at however remote times, or in however far apart latitudes and longitudes, that unnearable spout was
34cast by one self-same whale; and that whale, Moby Dick. For a time, there reigned, too, a sense of peculiar dread at
35this flitting apparition, as if it were treacherously beckoning us on and on, in order that the monster might turn round
36upon us, and rend us at last in the remotest and most savage seas. These temporary apprehensions, so vague but so awful,
37derived a wondrous potency from the contrasting serenity of the weather, in which, beneath all its blue blandness, some
38thought there lurked a devilish charm, as for days and days we voyaged along, through seas so wearily, lonesomely mild,
39that all space, in repugnance to our vengeful errand, seemed vacating itself of life before our urn-like prow. But, at
40last, when turning to the eastward, the Cape winds began howling around us, and we rose and fell upon the long, troubled
41seas that are there; when the ivory-tusked Pequod sharply bowed to the blast, and gored the dark waves in her madness,
42till, like showers of silver chips, the foam-flakes flew over her bulwarks; then all this desolate vacuity of life went
43away, but gave place to sights more dismal than before. Close to our bows, strange forms in the water darted hither and
44thither before us; while thick in our rear flew the inscrutable sea-ravens. And every morning, perched on our stays,
45rows of these birds were seen; and spite of our hootings, for a long time obstinately clung to the hemp, as though they
46deemed our ship some drifting, uninhabited craft; a thing appointed to desolation, and therefore fit roosting-place for
47their homeless selves. And heaved and heaved, still unrestingly heaved the black sea, as if its vast tides were a
48conscience; and the great mundane soul were in anguish and remorse for the long sin and suffering it had bred. Cape of
49Good Hope, do they call ye? Rather Cape Tormentoso, as called of yore; for long allured by the perfidious silences that
50before had attended us, we found ourselves launched into this tormented sea, where guilty beings transformed into those
51fowls and these fish, seemed condemned to swim on everlastingly without any haven in store, or beat that black air
52without any horizon. But calm, snow-white, and unvarying; still directing its fountain of feathers to the sky; still
53beckoning us on from before, the solitary jet would at times be descried. During all this blackness of the elements,
54Ahab, though assuming for the time the almost continual command of the drenched and dangerous deck, manifested the
55gloomiest reserve; and more seldom than ever addressed his mates. In tempestuous times like these, after everything
56above and aloft has been secured, nothing more can be done but passively to await the issue of the gale. Then Captain
57and crew become practical fatalists. So, with his ivory leg inserted into its accustomed hole, and with one hand firmly
58grasping a shroud, Ahab for hours and hours would stand gazing dead to windward, while an occasional squall of sleet or
59snow would all but congeal his very eyelashes together. Meantime, the crew driven from the forward part of the ship by
60the perilous seas that burstingly broke over its bows, stood in a line along the bulwarks in the waist; and the better
61to guard against the leaping waves, each man had slipped himself into a sort of bowline secured to the rail, in which he
62swung as in a loosened belt. Few or no words were spoken; and the silent ship, as if manned by painted sailors in wax,
63day after day tore on through all the swift madness and gladness of the demoniac waves. By night the same muteness of
64humanity before the shrieks of the ocean prevailed; still in silence the men swung in the bowlines; still wordless Ahab
65stood up to the blast. Even when wearied nature seemed demanding repose he would not seek that repose in his hammock.
66Never could Starbuck forget the old man's aspect, when one night going down into the cabin to mark how the barometer
67stood, he saw him with closed eyes sitting straight in his floor-screwed chair; the rain and half-melted sleet of the
68storm from which he had some time before emerged, still slowly dripping from the unremoved hat and coat. On the table
69beside him lay unrolled one of those charts of tides and currents which have previously been spoken of. His lantern
70swung from his tightly clenched hand. Though the body was erect, the head was thrown back so that the closed eyes were
71pointed towards the needle of the tell-tale that swung from a beam in the ceiling. *The cabin-compass is called the
72tell-tale, because without going to the compass at the helm, the Captain, while below, can inform himself of the course
73of the ship. Terrible old man! thought Starbuck with a shudder, sleeping in this gale, still thou steadfastly eyest thy
74purpose.
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