Hither, and thither, on high, glided the snow-white wings of
small, unspeckled birds; these were the gentle thoughts of the feminine
air; but to and fro in the deeps, far down in the bottomless blue, rushed
mighty leviathans, sword-fish, and sharks; and these were the strong,
troubled, murderous thinkings of the masculine sea.
But
though thus contrasting within, the contrast was only in shades and
shadows without; those two seemed one; it was only the sex, as it were,
that distinguished them.
Aloft, like a royal czar and
king, the sun seemed giving this gentle air to this bold and rolling sea;
even as bride to groom. And at the girdling line of the horizon, a soft
and tremulous motion—most seen here at the
Equator—denoted the fond, throbbing trust, the loving alarms,
with which the poor bride gave her bosom away.
Tied up
and twisted; gnarled and knotted with wrinkles; haggardly firm and
unyielding; his eyes glowing like coals, that still glow in the ashes of
ruin; untottering Ahab stood forth in the clearness of the morn; lifting
his splintered helmet of a brow to the fair girl's forehead of
heaven.
Oh, immortal infancy, and innocency of the
azure! Invisible winged creatures that frolic all round us! Sweet
childhood of air and sky! how oblivious were ye of old Ahab's close-coiled
woe! But so have I seen little Miriam and Martha, laughing-eyed elves,
heedlessly gambol around their old sire; sporting with the circle of
singed locks which grew on the marge of that burnt-out crater of his
brain.
Slowly crossing the deck from the scuttle, Ahab
leaned over the side and watched how his shadow in the water sank and sank
to his gaze, the more and the more that he strove to pierce the
profundity. But the lovely aromas in that enchanted air did at last seem
to dispel, for a moment, the cankerous thing in his soul. That glad, happy
air, that winsome sky, did at last stroke and caress him; the step-mother
world, so long cruel—forbidding—now threw affectionate
arms round his stubborn neck, and did seem to joyously sob over him, as if
over one, that however wilful and erring, she could yet find it in her
heart to save and to bless. From beneath his slouched hat Ahab dropped a
tear into the sea; nor did all the Pacific contain such wealth as that one
wee drop.
Starbuck saw the old man; saw him, how he
heavily leaned over the side; and he seemed to hear in his own true heart
the measureless sobbing that stole out of the centre of the serenity
around. Careful not to touch him, or be noticed by him, he yet drew near
to him, and stood there.