Moby Dick Page #4

the whale 's bared bones into the sea...

we were in no way sad at its funeral.

Captain.

-Starbuck?

-Aye, Captain.

It's late. You should turn in.

Sleep?

That bed is a coffin...

and those are winding sheets.

I do not sleep. I die.

The prize furnished 85 barrels of oil, sir.

They're all capped and stored.

-How is the wind?

-North, northeast and steady.

Make the most of it. I do not wish

to linger on this Cape Verde ground.

We're bound for the Pacific,

Mr. Starbuck, straightaway.

You will plot a course

south by east to the line...

and so southeast

to pick up the Guinea current.

Aye, aye, sir.

Mr. Starbuck...

did you ever ponder the movements

of whales around the four oceans?

I only know that they appear at

certain feeding grounds in certain seasons.

Look here.

Logbooks from the time

New Bedford men first went a-whaling...

helped me draw this chart.

It divides the oceans into areas of

five degrees of latitude by five of longitude.

Here are the months of the years,

the ships that passed...

how long they lingered,

the whales they saw:

what size, what color,

how many, where heading.

-I never saw the like.

-This way, the humpbacks go...

the blue, the right...

the spermaceti.

Sea mile by sea mile.

I know their hidden journeys

as I know the veins in my arm.

You mean to say that

their journeys can be foretold?

Aye, like the blood pumping in my veins

from heart to hand.

If this be so, we can follow along

with the herds, killing as we go...

and fill our hold in record time.

So we shall, Mr. Starbuck. So we shall...

once we've attended to

our bigger business.

What is that business, Captain?

Him, Mr. Starbuck. Him.

What's true of the herds holds largely

for the great solitaries and hermits.

If these sources tell the truth,

and my calculations are not faulty...

he now swims the waters off Good Hope...

and all the Indian Ocean lies before him.

Next month, he cruises the Bengal Bay,

March, the Sulu Sea...

running eastward

to the gateway of the Pacific.

I shall be waiting for him...

here...

at new moon in April.

Mr. Starbuck.

-I must give the helmsman our course.

-Come about, sir.

Why are you wearing that long face?

Are you not game for Moby Dick?

Captain Ahab,

I am game for any kind of death...

if it comes in the way

of the business we follow. That be known.

But I came here to hunt whales,

not my commander's vengeance.

How many barrels of sperm oil

will thy vengeance yield?

What will it fetch

on the New Bedford market?

Money is not the measurer, man.

It will fetch me a great premium...

here.

To be enraged with a dumb brute

that acted out of blind instinct...

is blasphemous.

Speak not to me of blasphemy, man.

I'd strike the sun if it insulted me.

Look ye, Starbuck...

all visible objects

are but as pasteboard masks.

Some inscrutable yet reasoning thing...

puts forth the molding of their features.

The white whale tasks me.

He heaps me.

Yet he is but a mask.

It is the thing behind the mask

I chiefly hate.

The malignant thing

that has plagued and frightened man...

since time began.

The thing that mauls

and mutilates our race...

not killing us outright,

but letting us live on...

with half a heart and half a lung.

God keep us, keep us all.

The crew stands with me, Mr. Starbuck.

You heard them swear.

Now...

what say ye?

Surely the best lance

out of all New Bedford...

will not hold back

from the greatest hunt of all?

I say calmly back to thee, sir,

I am against thee.

Nut thee needn't fear Starbuck.

Let Ahab beware Ahab.

Beware thyself, my captain.

We left the winter seas behind...

and sailed under the hot sun south.

South, past the unseen sprawl of Africa...

until we rounded the Cape of Storms and

steered a bold course east and northeast...

for the Indian Ocean and beyond.

-You there, lad, go aloft.

-Aye, aye, sir.

And so I served my first watch

in the masthead...

held in a great, gliding rhythm.

No life in me except that life imparted...

by a gently rolling ship...

remote from all the cares

of the people of the land.

There she blows!

Where away? How many?

Starboard bow, Mr. Stubb!

-Two! No, four of them!

-What's that boy yelling?

Six, seven of them!

There's three dozen more of them!

Look, Mr. Stubb! 100!

Come down from there!

The sun has baked your brains!

In the name of God, Mr. Stubb!

A hundred, two hundred whales!

Blast me dead, Mr. Flask.

All hands, prepare to lower!

Another 40 barrels, sir.

Ahoy, there!

Captain Boomer knocking at your door.

-May he come in, sir?

-Come aboard.

Captain Boomer's my name, sir.

Ship's Samuel Enderby of London.

Eighteen months at sea.

-Ahab.

-Captain Ahab, will you look out there?

What a circus.

Did ever you see such a run?

Do it, boys! Do it!

Kill three for Captain Ahab

and three for me!

Never fear. I'll not scuttle your ship.

She's a beauty, eh, Captain?

Better than flesh and blood.

Like her so much

I've a mind to have me other arm cut off.

The very thing for driving marlinspikes...

knocking sense

into green seamen's heads...

and particularly good

for tapping kegs of rum...

if you get my meaning, Captain.

Pip, fetch rum.

I see you're wearing

a bit of ivory yourself, sir.

Lubbers with four limbs

don't know what they're missing.

When I got this ivory jib,

all spanking new and scientific...

why, I could've thanked that whale.

Aye, a whale took me arm for his breakfast.

Devilish big, he was.

Pushed a tidal wave ahead with his nose...

and typhoons jumped off his flukes

when they banged the water.

Old, he was,

and scarred like Jerusalem's hills.

Captain Boomer, what was his color?

He was white, sir. Think me crazy,

it's a fact. He was snowy white.

Had another chance at him a month ago.

You didn't kill him?

Bless you, no. Went his merry way.

"Good riddance," said l, and meant it.

Where did you last see the white whale?

Off the Cape of Good Hope.

He was heading northeast

towards Madagascar.

Do you hear?

A white whale last month off Good Hope.

My chart is right and true!

He'll be off Bikini

when the April moon is new.

Stop the hunt!

Pick up our boats. We're setting sail.

But, Captain, those fine, big whales.

You men up there, get aloft!

I'll not sail with you, sir!

Bring my boat alongside.

Mr. Starbuck, cut loose that carcass.

Pip, signal the men to return to ship.

What ails ye, sir? Are ye stove-in drunk?

Captain Ahab, think what you're doing.

I beg thee, think.

-Set the mainsail!

-No, sir, no!

Mr. Starbuck, are you opposing me?

If so, I'll have you know

there is one God that is lord over the earth...

and one captain over the Pequod.

Away now! Cut loose!

Flask, what do you make of that?

Return to ship.

They're crazy, or I'm going blind.

You're not blind. Something's up.

Ye idiot, that's my whale

you're cutting loose!

Come aboard. We're setting sail.

Mr. Stubb, Mr. Flask, Did you not see

the pennant or hear my command?

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