imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em;
margin-right: 1em;">
width="268" />
witnesses, I had a deliberate statement of the entire case. Considering,
therefore, that squalls and capsizings in the water and consequent
bivouacks on the deep, were matters of common occurrence in this kind of
life; considering that at the superlatively critical instant of going on
to the whale I must resign my life into the hands of him who steered the
boat—oftentimes a fellow who at that very moment is in his impetuousness
upon the point of scuttling the craft with his own frantic stampings;
considering that the particular disaster to our own particular boat was
chiefly to be imputed to Starbuck's driving on to his whale almost in the
teeth of a squall, and considering that Starbuck, notwithstanding, was
famous for his great heedfulness in the fishery; considering that I
belonged to this uncommonly prudent Starbuck's boat; and finally
considering in what a devil's chase I was implicated, touching the White
Whale: taking all things together, I say, I thought I might as well go
below and make a rough draft of my will. "Queequeg," said I, "come along,
you shall be my lawyer, executor, and legatee."
It may seem
strange that of all men sailors should be tinkering at their last wills
and testaments, but there are no people in the world more fond of that
diversion. This was the fourth time in my nautical life that I had done
the same thing. After the ceremony was concluded upon the present
occasion, I felt all the easier; a stone was rolled away from my heart.
Besides, all the days I should now live would be as good as the days that
Lazarus lived after his resurrection; a supplementary clean gain of so
many months or weeks as the case might be. I survived myself; my death and
burial were locked up in my chest. I looked round me tranquilly and
contentedly, like a quiet ghost with a clean conscience sitting inside the
bars of a snug family vault.
Now then, thought I,
unconsciously rolling up the sleeves of my frock, here goes for a cool,
collected dive at death and destruction, and the devil fetch the
hindmost.
imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em;
margin-left: 1em;">
/>
Stubb; "if I had but one leg you would not catch me in a boat, unless
maybe to stop the plug-hole with my timber toe. Oh! he's a wonderful old
man!"
"I don't think it so strange, after all, on that
account," said Flask. "If his leg were off at the hip, now, it would be a
different thing. That would disable him; but he has one knee, and good
part of the other left, you know."
I don'tAmong whale-wise people it has often been argued
know that, my little man; I never yet saw him
kneel.
whether, considering the paramount importance of his life to the success
of the voyage, it is right for a whaling captain to jeopardize that life
in the active perils of the chase. So Tamerlane's soldiers often argued
with tears in their eyes, whether that invaluable life of his ought to be
carried into the thickest of the fight.
But with Ahab the
question assumed a modified aspect. Considering that with two legs man is
but a hobbling wight in all times of danger; considering that the pursuit
of whales is always under great and extraordinary difficulties; that every
individual moment, indeed, then comprises a peril; under these
circumstances is it wise for any maimed man to enter a whale-boat in the
hunt? As a general thing, the joint-owners of the Pequod must have plainly
thought not.