prophesy that I will dismember my dismemberer. Now, then, be the
prophet and the fulfiller one. That's more than ye, ye great gods,
ever were. I laugh and hoot at ye, ye cricket-players, ye pugilists,
ye deaf Burkes and blinded Bendigoes! I will not say as schoolboys
do to bullies--Take some one of your own size; don't pommel ME! No,
ye've knocked me down, and I am up again; but YE have run and hidden.
Come forth from behind your cotton bags! I have no long gun to
reach ye. Come, Ahab's compliments to ye; come and see if ye can
swerve me. Swerve me? ye cannot swerve me, else ye swerve
yourselves! man has ye there. Swerve me? The path to my fixed
purpose is laid with iron rails, whereon my soul is grooved to run.
Over unsounded gorges, through the rifled hearts of mountains, under
torrents' beds, unerringly I rush! Naught's an obstacle, naught's an
angle to the iron way!



CHAPTER 38

Dusk.


BY THE MAINMAST; STARBUCK LEANING AGAINST IT.


My soul is more than matched; she's overmanned; and by a madman!
Insufferable sting, that sanity should ground arms on such a field!
But he drilled deep down, and blasted all my reason out of me! I
think I see his impious end; but feel that I must help him to it.
Will I, nill I, the ineffable thing has tied me to him; tows me with
a cable I have no knife to cut. Horrible old man! Who's over him,
he cries;--aye, he would be a democrat to all above; look, how he
lords it over all below! Oh! I plainly see my miserable office,--to
obey, rebelling; and worse yet, to hate with touch of pity! For in
his eyes I read some lurid woe would shrivel me up, had I it. Yet is
there hope. Time and tide flow wide. The hated whale has the round
watery world to swim in, as the small gold-fish has its glassy globe.
His heaven-insulting purpose, God may wedge aside. I would up
heart, were it not like lead. But my whole clock's run down; my
heart the all-controlling weight, I have no key to lift again.


[A BURST OF REVELRY FROM THE FORECASTLE.]


Oh, God! to sail with such a heathen crew that have small touch of
human mothers in them! Whelped somewhere by the sharkish sea. The
white whale is their demigorgon. Hark! the infernal orgies! that
revelry is forward! mark the unfaltering silence aft! Methinks it
pictures life. Foremost through the sparkling sea shoots on the gay,
embattled, bantering bow, but only to drag dark Ahab after it, where
he broods within his sternward cabin, builded over the dead water of
the wake, and further on, hunted by its wolfish gurglings. The long
howl thrills me through! Peace! ye revellers, and set the watch!
Oh, life! 'tis in an hour like this, with soul beat down and held to
knowledge,--as wild, untutored things are forced to feed--Oh, life!
'tis now that I do feel the latent horror in thee! but 'tis not me!
that horror's out of me! and with the soft feeling of the human in
me, yet will I try to fight ye, ye grim, phantom futures! Stand by
me, hold me, bind me, O ye blessed influences!



CHAPTER 39

First Night Watch.

Fore-Top.

(STUBB SOLUS, AND MENDING A BRACE.)


Ha! ha! ha! ha! hem! clear my throat!--I've been thinking over it
ever since, and that ha, ha's the final consequence. Why so?
Because a laugh's the wisest, easiest answer to all that's queer; and
come what will, one comfort's always left--that unfailing comfort is,
it's all predestinated. I heard not all his talk with Starbuck; but
to my poor eye Starbuck then looked something as I the other evening
felt. Be sure the old Mogul has fixed him, too. I twigged it, knew
it; had had the gift, might readily have prophesied it--for when I
clapped my eye upon his skull I saw it. Well, Stubb, WISE
Stubb--that's my title--well, Stubb, what of it, Stubb? Here's a
carcase. I know not all that may be coming, but be it what it will,
I'll go to it laughing. Such a waggish leering as lurks in all your
horribles! I feel funny. Fa, la! lirra, skirra! What's my juicy
little pear at home doing now? Crying its eyes out?--Giving a party
to the last arrived harpooneers, I dare say, gay as a frigate's
pennant, and so am I--fa, la! lirra, skirra! Oh--

We'll drink to-night with hearts as light,
To love, as gay and fleeting
As bubbles that swim, on the beaker's brim,
And break on the lips while meeting.


A brave stave that--who calls? Mr. Starbuck? Aye, aye, sir--(ASIDE)
he's my superior, he has his too, if I'm not mistaken.--Aye, aye,
sir, just through with this job--coming.




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