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1Stubb's whale had been killed some distance from the ship. It was a calm; so, forming a tandem of three boats, we
2commenced the slow business of towing the trophy to the Pequod. And now, as we eighteen men with our thirty-six arms,
3and one hundred and eighty thumbs and fingers, slowly toiled hour after hour upon that inert, sluggish corpse in the
4sea; and it seemed hardly to budge at all, except at long intervals; good evidence was hereby furnished of the
5enormousness of the mass we moved. For, upon the great canal of Hang-Ho, or whatever they call it, in China, four or
6five laborers on the foot-path will draw a bulky freighted junk at the rate of a mile an hour; but this grand argosy we
7towed heavily forged along, as if laden with pig-lead in bulk. Darkness came on; but three lights up and down in the
8Pequod's main-rigging dimly guided our way; till drawing nearer we saw Ahab dropping one of several more lanterns over
9the bulwarks. Vacantly eyeing the heaving whale for a moment, he issued the usual orders for securing it for the night,
10and then handing his lantern to a seaman, went his way into the cabin, and did not come forward again until morning.
11Though, in overseeing the pursuit of this whale, Captain Ahab had evinced his customary activity, to call it so; yet now
12that the creature was dead, some vague dissatisfaction, or impatience, or despair, seemed working in him; as if the
13sight of that dead body reminded him that Moby Dick was yet to be slain; and though a thousand other whales were brought
14to his ship, all that would not one jot advance his grand, monomaniac object. Very soon you would have thought from the
15sound on the Pequod's decks, that all hands were preparing to cast anchor in the deep; for heavy chains are being
16dragged along the deck, and thrust rattling out of the port-holes. But by those clanking links, the vast corpse itself,
17not the ship, is to be moored. Tied by the head to the stern, and by the tail to the bows, the whale now lies with its
18black hull close to the vessel's and seen through the darkness of the night, which obscured the spars and rigging aloft,
19the two--ship and whale, seemed yoked together like colossal bullocks, whereof one reclines while the other remains
20standing. *A little item may as well be related here. The strongest and most reliable hold which the ship has upon the
21whale when moored alongside, is by the flukes or tail; and as from its greater density that part is relatively heavier
22than any other (excepting the side-fins), its flexibility even in death, causes it to sink low beneath the surface; so
23that with the hand you cannot get at it from the boat, in order to put the chain round it. But this difficulty is
24ingeniously overcome: a small, strong line is prepared with a wooden float at its outer end, and a weight in its middle,
25while the other end is secured to the ship. By adroit management the wooden float is made to rise on the other side of
26the mass, so that now having girdled the whale, the chain is readily made to follow suit; and being slipped along the
27body, is at last locked fast round the smallest part of the tail, at the point of junction with its broad flukes or
28lobes. If moody Ahab was now all quiescence, at least so far as could be known on deck, Stubb, his second mate, flushed
29with conquest, betrayed an unusual but still good-natured excitement. Such an unwonted bustle was he in that the staid
30Starbuck, his official superior, quietly resigned to him for the time the sole management of affairs. One small, helping
31cause of all this liveliness in Stubb, was soon made strangely manifest. Stubb was a high liver; he was somewhat
32intemperately fond of the whale as a flavorish thing to his palate. "A steak, a steak, ere I sleep! You, Daggoo!
33overboard you go, and cut me one from his small!" Here be it known, that though these wild fishermen do not, as a
34general thing, and according to the great military maxim, make the enemy defray the current expenses of the war (at
35least before realizing the proceeds of the voyage), yet now and then you find some of these Nantucketers who have a
36genuine relish for that particular part of the Sperm Whale designated by Stubb; comprising the tapering extremity of the
37body. About midnight that steak was cut and cooked; and lighted by two lanterns of sperm oil, Stubb stoutly stood up to
38his spermaceti supper at the capstan-head, as if that capstan were a sideboard. Nor was Stubb the only banqueter on
39whale's flesh that night. Mingling their mumblings with his own mastications, thousands on thousands of sharks, swarming
40round the dead leviathan, smackingly feasted on its fatness. The few sleepers below in their bunks were often startled
41by the sharp slapping of their tails against the hull, within a few inches of the sleepers' hearts. Peering over the
42side you could just see them (as before you heard them) wallowing in the sullen, black waters, and turning over on their
43backs as they scooped out huge globular pieces of the whale of the bigness of a human head. This particular feat of the
44shark seems all but miraculous. How at such an apparently unassailable surface, they contrive to gouge out such
45symmetrical mouthfuls, remains a part of the universal problem of all things. The mark they thus leave on the whale, may
46best be likened to the hollow made by a carpenter in countersinking for a screw. Though amid all the smoking horror and
47diabolism of a sea-fight, sharks will be seen longingly gazing up to the ship's decks, like hungry dogs round a table
48where red meat is being carved, ready to bolt down every killed man that is tossed to them; and though, while the
49valiant butchers over the deck-table are thus cannibally carving each other's live meat with carving-knives all gilded
50and tasselled, the sharks, also, with their jewel-hilted mouths, are quarrelsomely carving away under the table at the
51dead meat; and though, were you to turn the whole affair upside down, it would still be pretty much the same thing, that
52is to say, a shocking sharkish business enough for all parties; and though sharks also are the invariable outriders of
53all slave ships crossing the Atlantic, systematically trotting alongside, to be handy in case a parcel is to be carried
54anywhere, or a dead slave to be decently buried; and though one or two other like instances might be set down, touching
55the set terms, places, and occasions, when sharks do most socially congregate, and most hilariously feast; yet is there
56no conceivable time or occasion when you will find them in such countless numbers, and in gayer or more jovial spirits,
57than around a dead sperm whale, moored by night to a whaleship at sea. If you have never seen that sight, then suspend
58your decision about the propriety of devil-worship, and the expediency of conciliating the devil. But, as yet, Stubb
59heeded not the mumblings of the banquet that was going on so nigh him, no more than the sharks heeded the smacking of
60his own epicurean lips. "Cook, cook!--where's that old Fleece?" he cried at length, widening his legs still further, as
61if to form a more secure base for his supper; and, at the same time darting his fork into the dish, as if stabbing with
62his lance; "cook, you cook!--sail this way, cook!" The old black, not in any very high glee at having been previously
63roused from his warm hammock at a most unseasonable hour, came shambling along from his galley, for, like many old
64blacks, there was something the matter with his knee-pans, which he did not keep well scoured like his other pans; this
65old Fleece, as they called him, came shuffling and limping along, assisting his step with his tongs, which, after a
66clumsy fashion, were made of straightened iron hoops; this old Ebony floundered along, and in obedience to the word of
67command, came to a dead stop on the opposite side of Stubb's sideboard; when, with both hands folded before him, and
68resting on his two-legged cane, he bowed his arched back still further over, at the same time sideways inclining his
69head, so as to bring his best ear into play.
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